April 24, 2025, Thursday, Opening Day of Rockets 2025 in North Texas

Rockets 2025 opened today at the North Texas launch site in Jack county. Four schools were slated to test a total of 21 vehicles. Of those, three were aborted, and one from Hollenstein High School was held over for tomorrow‘s launch due to late completion in Stage 3, but 17 were tested today here in North Texas.

It was a long day. Final launches just barely made the daylight thresh hold before the final mission complete was called for the day. Storms impeded progress early in the morning from 6:00 a.m. until around 8:30 a.m. and again after lunch from about 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Temperatures bewteen 60s during and right after the storms to 80s in the late afternoon. Light jackets were quickly discarded by late afternoon when rain was replaced with full sun with only spotty clouds.

Our three recovery had a good day recovering a substantial number from today and a few old ones from past years.

Tomorrow’s original schedule shows 4 schools and 19 rockets. One of Hollenstein’s rockets is returning tomorrow which ups the number to 20 for the day.

It was a good day in spite of short handedness in Mission Control. Randy was covering Fill and Fire, Data Entry and Recovery coordination. Later in the day Jaque came in from Stage 2 and helped with Fill and Fire. And early on Joyce helped cover data entry to upload to Josephine so stats could be seen on the Livestream.

Tomorrow, recovery will be down one team from today, but another is coming in to help.

Tomorrow’s weather predicts rain possible with a 20-35% chance around 11:00 a.m. This could present a problem with completing all the launches for tomorrow. Hopefully this will not be the case, and we will not have to run into our contingency day on Saturday.

Pictures from the progress at the site to this point are on SystemsGo Facebook page, as well as my Facebook page. They can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/SystemsGoEducation/

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow

Restrooms and wash stations are available at the launch site, provided by Mobile Thrones. Teachers, spectators and students are encouraged to bring pop up tents (10×10) for extra shelter during the day. Please remember sunscreen, chairs, umbrellas, food, extra snacks, and drinks for your group . Concessions are still provided by the Jacksboro Stomp organization.

Please be courteous and clean up after yourselves and the members of your group. Downtime entertainment for the students to engage in between launches may also be helpful. Rockets are subject to winds, weather and workmanship, all of which can stall a launch, and delay schedules.

The launch dates, locations, and schools are listed here for your convenience or can be found at http://www.systemsgo.org/events/ .

North Texas/Jack County:

If you are follow this program join us again tomorrow for Rockets 2025 Day 2 in Jacksboro.

More event details will be available here in upcoming days as events get closer. Daily reports featuring schedule links, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will be posted during the events if information is available.

Please watch the SystemsGo website, SystemsGo Facebook page,  SystemsGo Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/SystemsGoNews and this blog for upcoming information on theses events.

www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org . Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.

Hope to see you at the launches!

#RidetheSkies, #EyesontheSkies #ItisRocketscience #Rockets2025 #SystemsGoRocketTrail #TexasRocketTrail #EyesToTheSkies

Happy Thanksgiving All

I had planned to post something  that I had written in the past for Thanksgiving, only to discover I couldn’t find anything I had written in the past for Thanksgiving. How sad, I thought, such a wonderful holiday and I have never taken the time to write a word about it. Well, now I shall remedy that, even if at the moment I have no idea what I plan to say. So you will just have to bear with me a bit!

It is odd that I haven’t taken the time to write about this holiday since I know it is one of my favorites and I know many say the same. I think it stands out as such because it involves all the wonderful aspects of a holiday without so much commercial fuss.  Yes, it does still have some, but not like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween.

It is designed as a holiday of thanks and sharing of all that we have, so we take the time to get together with family and friends and prepare and share food, 1452392_687153997972401_473183348_nfellowship, fun, parades, football, hunting, church, prayer and thanks. We share sheer joy at just being together. Our gifts for this particular holiday are our food, our joy, our love, and our companionship. We wrap them in smiles, hugs, tears and laughter.

We relax, visit, watch football, play games and eat all day long, and in our case late into the night. In fact sometimes it becomes a campfire party later in the evening.

The biggest stress is preparing food and cleaning at the house. Yes I said it that way on purpose because quite often all the cleaning never gets done (mostly dusting, the floors and bathrooms are clean-hey if you can’t handle that, write your name in the dust and then politely leave through the same door in which you came),  and my family never seems to mind. What didn’t get done will get finished as the Christmas decorations go up next week. Besides, I live in a sand field and I can dust today and it will look like I never did by tonight, especially if the windows are open which they have been off and on lately. But I digress, that is not the point. The point is we get together for this holiday to give great thanks and to just plain eat and have fun.

The stressful stuff starts on Friday as we start shopping for that next biggest holiday of Christmas.  But for Thanksgiving Day, wake up, watch the sun rise and go enjoy your family.img_8693 I know that is what I am going to do. Actually most of them are coming to my house. I wish every last one of them was, but unfortunately some due to circumstances just cannot. I pray that where ever they are, they are safe and have a wonderful day anyway.

God bless and give thanks for all you have, and pray for those less fortunate than you that may not being having such a wonderful day. May God bless and keep them and fill their needs as well.

Happy Thanksgiving All may you have a wonderful and blessed day.