Breaking Records: SA Rocket Successfully Launches 17.9km into the Air

- A South African hybrid rocket recently broke African records after it successfully launched 18km into the sky

- The rocket was designed developed by a hardworking team at the University of KwaZulu-Natal

- Minister for Higher Education, Science and Innovation Blade Ndzimande has said that this is a historic moment for the country

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South Africa's astronautics skils is slowly but surely reaching new heights - literally. A hybrid rocket built by a team of engineers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal recently travelled nearly 18km in the sky successfully breaking African rocket records for distance travelled.

The previous record for the rocket which is called The Phoenix-1B Mark IIr sounding rocket was set at 10.3km making the latest record even more amazing - and this is something that the South African minister for higher education, science and innovation noted.

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Speaking about the record-breaking achievement, Ndzimande said that it was a moment that will go down in history for the country. He also said that the achievement was a game-changer for South African space science.

Impressed South Africans had this to say about the country's latest astronautical achievement:

@Nhamo48248468 asked:

"Is this a SA space program? Which is better than nothing... hope it gets enough funding"

@Varaschaka asked:

"This is impressive, we are also Launching rockets into the sky too?"

@AndrewParsonson said:

"It's really exciting to see the development of applied rocket technology in my birth country!"

@Ziyaggy said:

"These are possibly the early stages of one"

Briefly.co.za previously reported that Elon Musk's Space X Starship Rocket recently exploded again after it was launched to test whether or not it is ready for a manned trip all the way to Mars - and after the results that were seen on Wednesday this week, it is clearly not.

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While the prototype spacecraft, which is called SN10, was able to successfully complete its test route after it was launched at the Space X headquarters in Texas on Wednesday this week, several minutes after it came back down it burst into flames.

The Space X crew shared a link to a live clip of the SN10 launching into the sky but had stopped recording by the time the spacecraft exploded. It was however recorded by a number of other cameras.

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Source: Briefly News