On October 20, 2024, USC’s student-built Aftershock II rocket soared to an unprecedented altitude of 470,400 feet (143.3 kilometers), setting a new world record for the highest flight ever achieved by a student or amateur rocket.
This historic launch, which took place in the remote Black Rock Desert of Nevada, shattered the previous amateur altitude record of 385,800 feet (117.6 kilometers), set in 2004 by the Civilian Space eXploration Team’s GoFast rocket.
The achievements didn’t stop there; according to the 22-page analysis of the mission, Aftershock II also broke the record for the fastest speed attained by an amateur rocket, reaching 5,283 feet per second (1,610 meters per second), surpassing the previous record of 5,019 feet per second (1,530 meters per second).
Aftershock II’s mission was meticulously planned and executed by the students of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Rocket Propulsion Lab (USCRPL), a group known for designing and building rockets that push the limits of technology. The team’s dedication to precision paid off, carefully analyzing and reconstructing data from the rocket’s systems to determine its exact flight path and highest point. The result: a verified peak altitude of 470,400 feet, give or take 27,300 feet. It made Aftershock II the highest-flying rocket made by a non-governmental or non-commercial group ever, according to the analysis.
The achievement comes on the eve of USCRPL’s 20th anniversary. Founded in 2005 with the goal of putting student-designed and built rockets into space, the lab’s rocket technology research and development has resulted in an eight-mission set, composed of over 12 different airframes and motors.
Around 100 USCRPL students worked on the rocket, including Operations Lead and aerospace engineering major Jayna Rybner.
“It’s probably the most incredible thing I’ve ever gotten an opportunity to be a part of,” Rybner said. “Seeing the hard work that we put in every day be able to come together and to see it actually really succeed, and to see it go to space was the coolest thing ever, knowing that just a bunch of college students did that.”
Students in various majors across the Viterbi School of Engineering spent hours to accomplish the launch, according to Dean Yannis Yortsos.
“This is not simply aerospace engineering students. We have mechanical engineering. We have students who understand propulsion and also fuels. We have electronics engineers. We have computer scientists, chemical engineers,” Yortsos said.
The success of Aftershock II was due in large part to the technological innovations developed by the USCRPL team. The rocket’s advanced thermal protection system included custom titanium-coated fins and a new heat-resistant paint, which helped the rocket withstand the extreme temperatures generated at hypersonic speeds. The team also built their own computer systems and circuit boards from scratch, enabling real-time tracking of the rocket’s position and providing live data throughout the flight.
This ability to integrate live data into the rocket’s systems was critical not only for the launch itself but also for the recovery of the rocket after its descent, according to the Aftershock II Apogee Analysis. The students used the data collected during the flight to successfully track the rocket and ensure a safe recovery, a key element of the mission’s success.
Professor Paul David Ronney, chair of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at USC, praised the students for the mission.
“They went to great lengths to ensure that they had checked everything, and used multiple sources of multiple sensors to determine what the altitude was, and gave the limits of uncertainty of their altitude,” Ronney said. “It’s entirely student-run, and it’s almost entirely undergraduates. That’s really quite an exceptional thing.”
Ronney emphasized that the USCRPL offers students more than just technical experience. It provides them with the opportunity to manage a complex project that includes not only engineering, but also fundraising, safety and external relations.
“It’s like a mini-corporation,” Ronney said. “The students that have come out of that lab… have gone on to leadership positions in all of the major aerospace companies.”
For students like Rybner, the achievement was an unforgettable experience.
“This was probably the coolest thing we had ever gotten the opportunity to do,” Rybner said. We’re just college students who have homework and dishes and groceries to do, and we just sent a rocket to space. We broke the world record and sent a rocket higher than anyone ever has.”
This milestone is just the latest in a series of groundbreaking achievements by the USC Rocket Propulsion Lab. In 2019, the team made history when their Traveler IV rocket became the first student-designed and built rocket to pass the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary of space — at 328,083 feet (100 kilometers). With Aftershock II, they have now set a new benchmark for both student and amateur rocketry.
“It is important to know that all this technology is developed by our students themselves,” Yortsos said. “It’s all done in-house. Our students get advice from the faculty, but they develop everything on their own… We’re so proud of them because they can do this on their own. They learn how to transfer this knowledge from one year to another.”
USCRPL’s next goal isn’t to reach a higher altitude, according to Executive Engineer Ryan Kraemer.
“Actually, 470,000 feet is just shy of the limit for amateur rocketry, which is 490,000 feet,” Kraemer said. “Unless we want to get special clearances, we are going to have to stay under that height, but we are going to move forward in the sense of flying research payloads. We’re excited to use, essentially what is a sounding rocket at this point, to gather data for whoever wants it.”
While the team has nearly reached the bounds of altitude for amateur rocketry, there are many opportunities for other astronautical records to be broken.
“Some newer members of the club walked over, and we said to them, ‘Hey, this may have been the coolest thing we’ve ever done, but this is not going to be the coolest thing you guys have ever done,” Rybner said. “This freshman class [has] four more years to take what we did and do it even crazier, even better, even cheaper, even better to manufacture.”
“There’s so much future here in the club.”