ACCOMACK COUNTY, Va. — More than 50 student and faculty teams launched experiments into the upper atmosphere Thursday morning from Wallops Island, according to NASA.
A Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket, carrying the student experiments successfully launched Thursday morning at around 5:30 a.m., as part of the RockOn mission, NASA said.
The rockets reached an altitude of 114 km (70 miles) before return and recovery. The rocket's payload will now be returned to the student teams for analysis.
Watch last year's Launch:
RockOn is an annual student mission from NASA that introduces community college and university students to rocket flight.
“RockOn provides students and faculty with authentic, hands-on experiences tied to an actual launch into space from a NASA facility,” said Chris Koehler, on contract with NASA as RockOn’s principal investigator.
This year's student teams included one from Old Dominion University in Norfolk and one from Virginia Beach.
