AFA cadets hit space with homemade rocket

A rocket built by Air Force Academy cadets hurled a dart 20 miles into space early Friday.

The solid rocket booster burned for less than five seconds after the 5:18 a.m. launch at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico but reached speeds of more than six times the speed of sound, Capt. Luke Sauter, a faculty adviser on the project said. The 20-pound dart topped out at more than 422,000 feet.

"We definitely hit space," Sauter said.

Dubbed Falcon Launch VII, the rocket was built by a group 25 senior cadets who started work in August as a class project designed to teach them about engineering, astrophysics and management.

Test-fired at the academy in March, the rocket booster held 102 pounds of solid fuel. It hurled the dart much as a track star would toss a javelin.

The dart hit space, but because it didn't have a rocket engine of its own, lacked the energy to continue in orbit. Designed to withstand the punishing re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere, it plummeted back to the missile range.

The dart was equipped with a black box to record its flight, and a radio beacon to aid in recovery efforts, but cadets were still searching for it six hours after the flight.

Sauter said the cadets put several thousand hours into the rocket work and were "ecstatic" when the launch went off without trouble.

"They deserve all the credit," Sauter said.

A launch attempt last year for the cadet rocket program was scrubbed after the booster motor was damaged in shipping to the launch site in Virginia. This year's rocket was X-rayed after it arrived in New Mexico and no defects were found.

While the rocket was a class project, it provided real-world research for the Air Force, which has stepped up efforts in recent years examining small satellites that can be launched quickly.

The tips of the stabilizing fins on Falcon Launch VII were an experimental design by the Air Force Institute of Technology and Air Force Research Labs.

Data from how they worked on the academy rocket will help the Air Force design future craft.

Meanwhile, Sauter said, the cadets can look forward to some good grades on their class project.

"It outperformed our objectives," he said.