{"id":196456,"date":"2025-11-23T19:17:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T19:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/196456\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T19:17:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T19:17:17","slug":"students-aiming-high-at-rocket-launch-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/196456\/","title":{"rendered":"Students aiming high at rocket launch area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        STAR-STUDDED STUDENTS:<br \/>\n                        Students are staging increasing numbers of launches out of the Pingtung rocketry site for the equipment-laden research rockets they build                    <\/p>\n<ul class=\"as boxTitle boxText\" data-desc=\"\u5206\u4eab\u5217\">\n<li>\n<p>By Tsai Tsung-hsien and Jake Chung  \/  Staff reporter, with staff writer<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The successful launch of a research rocket by the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) yesterday at Pintung County\u2019s Hsu-Hai Research-use Rocket Launching Area is a result of the National Science and Technology Council\u2019s efforts to foster homegrown aerospace engineering talent within Taiwan, the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) said.<\/p>\n<p>The project is educating students to help fill gaps in Taiwan\u2019s aerospace industry, according to TASA.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket, designated \u201cAfterlight 1,\u201d was launched at 6:30am yesterday and was not recovered, the team said.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/P02-251123-001.jpg\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo courtesy of Taiwan Space Agency<\/p>\n<p>The team comprised members from NCKU\u2019s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Combustion and Propulsion Lab, and the university\u2019s Institute of Space Propulsion student club.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket was built from fiberglass, powered by a solid fuel motor, equipped with a parachute, and was designed to reach a maximum altitude of 1km while carrying 4kg, according to professor and project head Wu Chih-yung (\u5433\u5fd7\u52c7).<\/p>\n<p>The wind speed at the launching area yesterday morning was about 7 or 8 meters per second, and the team lowered the launch angle from 80\u00b0 to 75\u00b0 to compensate, he said.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/P02-251123-002.jpg\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photograph courtesy of the Taiwan Space Agency<\/p>\n<p>The two-section rocket was supposed to pop apart at its apogee and have the rear section land with a parachute, but the design could not be tested, as the rocket had only achieved an altitude of 761m, Wu said.<\/p>\n<p>The avionics system recorded the altitude, speed, acceleration and other data, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough we didn\u2019t recover the rocket, our experiences have made us more capable,\u201d the team\u2019s safety officer and NCKU Department of Mechanical Engineering student You Chun-hung (\u5c24\u921e\u958e) said, adding the club is already designing the next generation of the rocket.<\/p>\n<p>Since the Hsu-Hai launch area entered active commission, 11 research rockets have been launched from there, TASA said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STAR-STUDDED STUDENTS: Students are staging increasing numbers of launches out of the Pingtung rocketry site for the equipment-laden&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,17,133,451,11689,11688],"class_list":{"0":"post-196456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-the-taipei-times","14":"tag-11688"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115600625365782003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}