Student Rocket Reaches Space, Smashes World Record for Highest Altitude: 470,000 Feet

Engineering students at the University of Southern California (USC) have dramatically surpassed a 20-year-old world record for the highest altitude reached by an amateur rocket. Called Aftershock II, the suborbital spacecraft reached 470,000 feet in October, smashing the previous record by a whopping 90,000 feet.

Aftershock II comes from the Rocket Propulsion Lab at USC's Viterbi School of Engineering. In 2019, the lab built Traveler IV, the first student-built rocket to pass the Kármán line, the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space. But students wanted to shoot for the moon—well, metaphorically speaking. They had their eye on the world record for the highest altitude reached by a non-governmental and non-commercial rocket held by the Civilian Space Exploration Team (CSXT). In 2004, CSXT launched GoFast, an amateur rocket that reached an altitude of 380,000 feet before parachuting back down to Earth.

The Rocket Propulsion Lab ...