Dutch students break European rocketry record
On 16 October in the afternoon, the Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering (DARE) student society of the Delft University of Technology broke a European record in amateur rocketry. The students successfully launched a rocket into space that attempted to reach the Kármán line at 100 kilometers in altitude.
The first attempt made by the students on Thursday was thwarted by problems with a motor valve, which is why after fixing it, they made another attempt the next day. The seven-meter-long Stratos II+ rocket uses a mix of sorbitol and paraffin for fuel. It reached a speed of 100 km/h in 0.85 seconds, with a top speed of 3000 km/h.
In a few years, the DARE team wants to go into space, and to be able to do that they need to reach the Kármán line. The sky’s the limit now.
(Links: www.ad.nl, dare.tudelft.nl)
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