14 DAY TRIAL // Later this week, a small army of rockets will take to the skies from a carefully chosen location close to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in the city of Huntsville in Alabama, US.
The rockets, all built by high school, college or university science enthusiasts, will be sent soaring through the clouds as part of this year's 15th annual NASA Student Launch event, scheduled for April 10-11.
The event sounds like a lot of fun
Well over 30 teams of middle school, high school, college and university students are expected to take part in this year's rocket launches at Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama.
The teams whose members are either middle school or high school students will fly their rockets to an altitude of 1 mile (approximately 1.6 kilometers) before guiding them towards the ground with the help of recovery parachutes.
While in midair, the rockets will complete onboard science experiments. These launches are scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. on the dot on April 11 but will be moved to April 12, should the weather throw a fit.
As for the college and university teams, they will get to pick and choose between two launch events: the Mini-Mars Ascent Vehicle (Mini-MAV) and the Maxi-Mars Ascent Vehicle (Maxi-MAV), both scheduled for April 10.
The students who choose the first of these events will have to showcase a robotic system designed to autonomously load a cargo into their rocket, fly the spacecraft to an altitude of 0.5 miles (about 0.8 kilometers) and have the cargo ejected during descend.
As for the teams taking part in the Maxi-MAV event, NASA tells us that they will be competing for a $50,000 (€45,500) prize and will have to showcase more than just one autonomous system before launching their rocket.
There will even be a fair before the event
On April 9, the day before the launch date for the first student-built rockets, a fair will be held at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in Activities Building 4316.
During this fair, the students will present their rockets, and NASA engineers, together with representative of the event's corporate sponsor, Orbital ATK, will offer them feedback on their work.
