I am very proud to report that the NASA SLI team made history this weekend in Huntsville, Alabama by hitting their target altitude exactly!  We made it our goal early in the year that we wanted to win the altitude award and they surpassed expectations!  In November, the target altitude for the 27lb and 8ft long rocket carrying the scientific payload would be 4500ft.  We had several practice flights this winter.  On Saturday, they measured temperature, wind speed and based on elevation set the mass of their rocket.  When we went out to the pads, they noticed the pads were angled 5 degrees and they decided to lose some mass which they promptly removed from the nosecone.  The rocket reached 4500ft exactly!  No university in the 23 year history of NASA Student Launch has ever hit the target altitude exactly! 
 
The Battle of the Rockets team this weekend comprised of 4 9th graders and one 8th grader competed in two events against high schools and universities in Culpeper, VA.  The team was outstanding bringing home second in the target altitude event and fourth in the deployable payload event in their first year of high power rocketry competition.  

​Watch the NASA Student Launch live this Saturday, we are not able to broadcast via Facebook Live. You can find it two ways, https://www.facebook.com/NASAStudentLaunch and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYKfAzPEXMQsGtNfBCNa_BA and our launch window begins at Noon eastern time and will run about 45 minutes.