Today, at 10.28 UTC, the student rocket Stratos was launched from Esrange Space Center. The rocket, an amateur rocket developed by students from the Delft University of Technology in Holland, reached an altitude of 12551 m. This is from now on considered as the new official record for European amateur rockets. The record was earlier held by the British amateur rocket society MARS, which launched a rocket to 10.7 km from Black Rock Desert in USA in 2000.
 
- Our rocket performed like a dream. Everything worked as planned, the two rocket stages ignited nominally and the impact was within the safety area, says Mark Uitendaal, the Stratos project leader writing his thesis on this project.

- It is great to have the opportunity as a student team to launch our own rocket from the profession launch area at Esrange Space Center. The learning experience of working together with the experts in the field of rocketry is priceless, says Ragiel Wildvank and Jasper de Reus, students in the Stratos team.

Student association DARE
Stratos has been developed by a team of students from the faculty of Electrical and Aerospace Engineering, all members of the student association Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering (DARE). The purpose of the association is to involve students in the designing and launching of experimental rockets. Dutch Space, a space company located in Leiden, is the principle sponsor of project Stratos.

 Images

More about Stratos

Students' website

Spokespersons of the student team

For further information contact
Ola Widell,  Stratos/DARE project manager at Esrange, SSC
Phone: +46 980 720 31 
E-mail: ola.widell@esrange.ssc.se