Northville Aerospace Club only state school picked for NASA challenge
Members of Northville High School’s Aerospace Club are pictured before launching a rocket they built. PHOTOS COURTESY NORTHVILLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Northville High School’s Aerospace Club is preparing for liftoff as they head to Huntsville, Alabama, next week to compete in the prestigious NASA Student Launch Challenge, taking place April 30-May 4.
Northville is proud to be the only high school in Michigan selected for this national competition.
The NASA Student Launch is an intense, nine-month-long research-based engineering challenge that tasks middle school, high school, and university teams from across the country with designing, building, and flying a high-powered rocket carrying a scientific or engineering payload.
Launch at historic site
The program, based out of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, culminates each spring with a final launch week in Huntsville — the historic home of America’s space program.
Throughout the school year, Northville’s team has been hard at work testing flight hardware, coding onboard electronics, designing payload systems, and successfully launching both sub-scale and full-scale rockets to verify flight and payload functionality.
But their mission goes far beyond the launch pad. The club has also engaged in student outreach throughout Northville Public Schools, visiting classrooms and inspiring younger students through student-led or student assisted lessons to learn more about rocket science and aerospace engineering.
