In June, members of the Columbia Space Initiative, a student club devoted to space engineering, traveled to California’s Mojave Desert to compete in FAR-OUT 2024, a national rocketry competition. Columbia’s budding aerospace scientists won second place in their division, launching a nitrous-paraffin hybrid rocket that they designed and built to an altitude of about one mile. Their rocket produced over a half ton of thrust, accelerated at 16 Gs, and deployed parachutes to land and be safely recovered. The Columbia students also won the event’s “podium presentation,” in which they showcased their design innovations.
