In just over a week, 54 middle school, high school and college and university teams from 23 states will be launching their custom-built rockets and payloads to one-mile in altitude at the 2018 Student Launch competition held at Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Teams spent eight months building and testing rockets designed to fly to an altitude of one mile, deploy an automated parachute system, and safely land for reuse, each carrying a scientific payload for data collection during flight.

The winning team will take home a cash prize of $5,000, offered by Orbital ATK of Promontory, Utah, longtime corporate sponsor of the challenge.

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/Fred Deaton

For more images from the 2017 Student Launch, click here.

For more information about Student Launch, click here.

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