Pennsylvania Student ‘Rocketeers’ Win National Championship

Aerospace Industries Association - A team from Penn Manor High School in Millersville, Penn., took first place at the Eighth Annual Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) Saturday, earning the title of national champion. The four-member team won the world’s largest rocket contest after spending months designing, building and test launching their model rocket. The Team America Rocketry Challenge kicked off last September with 669 teams from across the nation vying for a chance to compete among the top 100 qualifying teams at the finals held today outside of Washington, D.C.

This year, student teams were challenged to design, build and launch a model rocket to an altitude of 825 feet with a flight time of 40-45 seconds, as well as return a raw egg payload to the ground unbroken without a parachute.

The contest, sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of Rocketry, is intended to spark students’ interest in aerospace careers and in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM — college degree programs. Almost 60 percent of the U.S. aerospace workforce is 45 or older and beginning to retire in large numbers, according to AIA statistics.