Rocket Explosion Shocks Local Students

Chosen as one of 25 groups across the United States three students at Liberty Middle School in West Fargo take part in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.

Only seconds away from lift off, students watch their experiment on how rust forms differently in a microgravity environment, rocketed to space.

One member of the team says she’s enjoyed the whole process.

A part of the three person team, Skylar Manney said, “I liked it all, we got to work in a group so, you got to meet new people, I didn’t know any of my group mates before this.”

During the launch at NASA, in less than two minutes, everything changes for the three kid team.

Falcon 9 explodes, never reaching space and the students work, is gone.

Watching his experiment explode, Jacob Angus said, “I heard that rockets they break off at different phases but it seemed a little early for that one so I was a little astonished at that it happened.”

Even though the launch didn’t work out too well this time around the students still have a second chance for their project to go to space

The team’s advisor Eric Dobervich said,”What will likely happen is that they have a second opportunity to have their experiment sent up in another future launch it’s just a matter of waiting for when and where and how that will happen.”

And the team is full of optimism that they can recreate the experiment

“There’s not a lot that we have to do, but it should be pretty easy for us to fix this, it’s just a little set back now,” said Jacob.

An obstacle they can overcome to eventually have their research, out of this world.

The next launch date to the space center is still to be determined.