Student-made rocket smashes 20-year-old world record, soaring 470,400 feet above Earth

What just happened? A team of engineering students from the University of Southern California just took amateur rocketry to new heights – literally. The USC Rocket Propulsion Lab broke the previous altitude record for student/amateur rockets last month when their Aftershock II vehicle soared an incredible 89.09 miles above the Earth's surface.

Launched on October 20 from Nevada's Black Rock Desert, the 13-foot, 330-pound rocket reached a peak altitude of 470,400 feet. That's nearly 90 miles up, shattering the prior 71.97-mile amateur record set by the Civilian Space Exploration Team's GoFast rocket back in 2004.

That's impressive enough alone, but it's not the only record set by the Aftershock II. The rocket was also the fastest of its kind, achieving a top speed of 3,602 mph. The students calculated that the rocket accelerated to an astonishing 5,283 feet per ...