Launching Rockets in Kansas with Dr. Hays

On August 5th 2018, Dr. Hays’ research group in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering launched two 12.5 ft.-tall, 60+-pound rockets carrying customer payloads in Argonia, Kansas.  Undergraduate aerospace engineering students Alex Speed, Trevor Trevino, Christopher Hughes, William Wadkins and Jarrod Manning successfully built and flew the two rocket systems with assistance from Dr. Hays.

 

Senior aerospace engineering student Alex Speed obtained the University’s first undergraduate Tripoli Rocket Association Level 3 certification as a result of his successful launch of “Godspeed.”  The second launch of “Spednik” brought OU Aerospace into the supersonic realm by reaching Mach 1.15.  Both rockets successfully delivered customer data from the payload, and were tracked directly to their landing site using Telemega GPS telemetry systems.

ame-alex-speed

The AME department would like to thank our payload customer, the Kansas ‘Kloudbusters,’ and Tulsa TRA prefecture members for their help in making the launch such a success.