{"id":343726,"date":"2025-12-31T00:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/343726\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T00:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:37:08","slug":"first-student-built-rocket-takes-off-in-pembroke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/343726\/","title":{"rendered":"First student-built rocket takes-off in Pembroke"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of jittery engineering students gathered in Pembroke on Monday morning, crossing their fingers in the hope of witnessing their rocket\u2019s first launch.<\/p>\n

The rocket and launch pad, built by the University of Malta\u2019s rocketry team, were set up at Pembroke\u2019s firing range, near a coastal structure. As a safety precaution, the rocket was angled slightly towards the sea.<\/p>\n

A few members of the rocketry team were at the site before dawn, setting the rocket up for the launch. Five hundred metres away from the site, on a hill in front of the Institute of Education, was the public viewing area.<\/p>\n

Students and other members of the public were chatting, drinking coffee, and eating pastizzi as they eagerly awaited the launch. Others appeared more tense, constantly on the radio with the team and the AFM, hoping all would go smoothly.<\/p>\n

UM Rocketry’s first rocket launch. Video: Matthew Mirabelli<\/p>\n

Months ago, the same team were unable to launch their rocket at a European rocketry competition in Portugal as their motor had blown up<\/a> the day before they were supposed to fly out to the competition. Although the team rebuilt their motor and placed in the top ten, they lacked the time and resources to do a full launch.<\/p>\n

So, they decided to attempt a launch in Malta instead. They had built the rocket to travel up to 3 kilometres, but since there was not enough space to carry out a safe launch, they aimed to launch the rocket about 600 metres.<\/p>\n

The launch was initially scheduled at 8am, but as is expected with these things, there were delays.<\/p>\n

At 8.39 am, the countdown began.<\/p>\n

After counting one, ten seconds of silence followed until the rocket shot up 690 metres into the sky, curving towards the sea, and left a white trail of smoke behind it.<\/p>\n

People audibly gasped and shouted out, but held in their celebrations until the rocket\u2019s parachute was deployed and it splashed into the sea. There was a collective sigh of relief, followed by a round of applause. Apart from the parachute not deploying properly, the launch was a success, and the rocket was intact.<\/p>\n

Just after the successful launch, a jubilant Daniel Attard \u2013 the team\u2019s Chief of Operations \u2013 told Times of Malta:<\/p>\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t know what to expect. It\u2019s a first of its kind in Malta that a rocket was developed by a student team with everything being built in Malta.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m full of adrenaline right now. This project has been going on for the past three years, when we started in 2023 with project Merill II, and this launch marks the closure of that project for UM Rocketry and the start of many more,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of jittery engineering students gathered in Pembroke on Monday morning, crossing their fingers in the hope…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-343726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}