Scott Netherland – Page 14 – On the Wings of Angels

Monday Rockets Headed to White Sands-Day 1-Report and Tuesday Early Information

The SystemsGo team left Fredericksburg at 9:00 a.m. this morning headed to White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. They arrived in Alamogordo, NM, for lodging at 5:30 this evening. All participating schools also arrived safely.

Tomorrow is an informational and set up day. SystemsGo personnel and all students, teachers, and parents from the schools head out at 6:30 a.m. for T-1 briefing and a short presentation by each school on their vehicle and it’s expectations. Afterwards SystemsGo, students and necessary personnel go to West Center 50 launch site to set up and prep vehicles. Parents will be dismissed at that time to find their own entertainment for the day.

Wednesday is the first launch day and at this point, it is slated to be an early morning. Fredericksburg STEM Academy is first up to launch for the day and the current schedule has them testing at 6:00 a.m. The hope is to test 3 vehicles by 10:00 a.m, including Union Grove and Alamo Heights.

Event details will continue to be available here. I will provide more information each day as to how the schedule and other event details will progress for that day and how launches went for the schools testing the previous day. Pictures are not allowed on the range, but some pictures of teams getting ready to leave for the range with their vehicles might be available. If anything is available, I will post it for your viewing pleasure.

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.

Team photo includes from left to right, Josh Hampton, Gene Garrett, Steve Burow, Kasey Burow, Rebecca Hyatt, Scott Netherland, Brian Heffner, and Ginger Burow. Not available for this picture, Chelsea Burow and Andrew Matthes. Chelsea joined them in Alamogordo, and Mr. Matthes traveled with his students.

Fredericksburg STEM Academy/Rocket Program-Launch Report for Rockets 2017 WSMR Launch Week Red Bird #18 Update

Red Bird #18 is scheduled for testing at White Sands Missile Range(WSMR) next Wednesday, June 28. This marks the last big event for Rockets 2017 and the Fredericksburg STEM Academy for this season.

These are the Goddard level rockets, which are the culmination of all the skills the students have learned throughout their years in the STEM program. This marks the final senior project for those schools that participate in this level of the SystemsGo program.

According to team member, Sterling Weatherford, “We are finishing up our rocket production, with integration and final testing before we head off to White Sands.”

Mr. Matthes reports that welding on the vehicle is complete and it is together. Below is a pictures of the class with the vehicle at SRM Manufacturing, one of the outsource businesses they contracted for help with welding. In order left to right the students are Jesse Cedillo, Colby Marthaller, Ricky Robles, Langston James, Nathan Bain, Chase Ottmers, Hannah Boubel, Joseph Sanchez, and Sterling Weatherford.

Other members of the group not pictured here are David Becker, Drew McDonald, Matthew Dulaney, Corbin Styles, Josh Treibs, Payton Carroll, Cody Pruett, Levi Crawford, and Ian Kendrick.

The students report that they are putting finishing touches on the nosecone, including sanding and a gel coat to create a smooth finished surface. They will be installing the complete motor system in to the rocket today, Wednesday, June 21.

They had been working on integrating the recovery, propulsion and fuel grain systems into the vehicle. All parts have been fit tested for the integration. Recovery, avionics, and the payload have since been successfully installed.

They are finishing the assembly of the fuel grain including an ablative that the students have chosen to add to the post combustion portion, afterwhich they can install the fuel grain and the rest of the propulsion system into the rocket.

Here one of the students shows the injection valve and injector bell arrangement.

Here is a picture of Drew McDonald, Ricky Robles, and Jesse Cedillo earlier when they were mixing fuel for the second attempt at the fuel grain.

Their final actions will be to test the black powder charges for the recovery system and then they will be ready to move the rocket to WSMR for their full vehicle launch testing.

“We are extremely excited to test our rocket at the upcoming White Sands Missile Range launches,” Sterling reported.

Monday evening they met to discuss travel plans and trip expectations.

Launches are scheduled for June 28 through June 30. The group will travel out to WSMR on Monday, June 26, and back home again on Saturday, July 1.

There are 5 schools scheduled to launch 6 rockets. These schools include:

Alamo Heights (1)
Anahuac (1)
Booker T. Washington ( 2)
Fredericksburg (1)
Union Grove (1)

This year is unique in that the Army has some classified tests scheduled that will slightly overlap SystemsGo’s air space on both June 28th and June 30th. This could delay start on Wednesday, and it has already been set to 0700. The hope is that all launches will be complete by Thursday afternoon so that Friday will not be needed since another high priority group will be needing that day as a back up day as well. SystemsGo will travel home Friday if this can be accomplished instead of one day later on Saturday.

The current launch schedule is as follows:

Monday, Jun 25th Travel Day
Tuesday, Jun 26th T-1 and Site Set up/Rocket Prep at WC-50
Wednesday, Jun 27th Launch Day One (Three Rockets – Fredericksburg, Union Grove, Alamo Heights)
Thursday, Jun 28th Launch Day Two (Three Rockets – Anahuac, Booker T. #1, Booker T. #2)
Friday, Jun 29th Contingency Day/Travel Day
Saturday, Jun 30th Travel Day

Both the Junior and senior groups presented there projects and made reports on June 1st as their final exam for the year. Below is the junior group after their presentation.

This article is the eleventh in a series, new for this school year ’16/’17 of updates that have followed the Fredericksburg STEM Academy/Rocket program. This school is a participant of the SystemsGo STEM program. This series of articles is intended to support, encourage, and challenge students in the program as they share their working status and accomplishments throughout the year in the program. These publications will be available for tags and re-posting.

Subsequent updates will continue to follow the Senior/Graduates and the progress of the Red Bird #18 rocket after launch at WSMR next week.

Today is 5 days out until the Red Bird #18 group leaves for WSMR. Watch this blog next week for information and reports on this and all the schools’ launches at White Sands Missile Range.

This was presented to the Red Bird #18 group after their June 1 end of year presentation. The sentiment still holds as we congratulate this group of graduates on their accomplishments and the achievement of finishing their rocket. Good luck at WSMR!

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.

#Rockets2017 #SystemsGo #FredricksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01

Rockets 2017-Saturday Report-Williams Retirement- Sunday Schedule

Saturday was another great day of launches. Let’s see who is paying attention, we had 21 rockets on the schedule and we launched 23. The answer is later in the story. After storms came through the area over night and early this morning, causing a two-hour rain delay, rockets finally started flying around lunch time. The sky finally opened a window of opportunity.

Even though launches started late, Stages 1 and 2 continued on schedule. This meant that when weather finally permitted launching, the spectator tent where rockets wait to go down to Stage 3, was full with more waiting than I have ever seen there.

This evening after launches were completed for the schools, two more rockets were sent up as a tribute to retired FHS STEM teacher and SystemsGo founder Brett Williams. They were both recovered in short order and taken to the Willow City Fire House where a dinner was hosted in his honor. He developed the program that all these schools use to teach the STEM curriculum across Texas and now New Mexico as well.

Several people gave a tribute address honoring and telling stories about Mr. Williams, including Scott Netherland, Andrew Matthes, Rebekah Hyatt, Dave Cambell, and Tom Moser.

Tom is a retired NASA rocket program member who became involved with the program. He served NASA as Deputy Associate Administrator for space station and space flight. These were just one of his many duties at NASA. Tom is one on a list of many influential people who Brett recruited to support the program over the years. After his address, he presented Brett with a NASA Citation for his work and contribution to the STEM program and student education.

Below is the launch schedule for today, Sunday. There are 5 schools launching a total of 16 rockets.

Sunday, May 21, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Alamo Heights High School Colin Lang		3
Hardin-Jefferson High School Mike Fogo	3	1
Manor High School Will Davis	3
New Tech Odessa Richard Linder	1	1
Roosevelt High School Jared Warsing	3	1


5
Schools Launching
Totals	11	7
May 15^th Total Rockets	18

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look, you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1479031692117957.1073741890.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story

Here is the second album link to the pictures from Brett William’s party.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1479469515407508.1073741891.100000334203350&type=3&uploaded=36

Good luck to all the schools launching on Sunday. I will update the blog after we complete our day again tomorrow. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Please remember that although there is no charge for the event, and these launches are open to public viewing, parking and seating is limited due to safety requirements. For this reason, SystemsGo has a provided a link for you to pre-order tickets for those in your party. That link can be found at SystemsGo Events page. This also provides SystemsGo with a way to monitor the number of people in attendance each year. This is in no way meant to discourage your attendance, but is instead to help them provide a great experience for students and spectators, while doing all possible to monitor safety issues and attendance numbers at any one time during the launches.

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

#SystemsGo #Rockets2017 #FredericksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01 #SystemsGoNewMexico

Rockets 2017-Friday Day 2 Report and Saturday Schedule

Friday had another slow start for rockets. The ceiling was a low again. SystemsGo was able to load 24 out of 25 rockets listed on the schedule onto the rails and launched all 24.The 25th was an abort by one of the schools.

Here are a few of those smiling faces taking their rockets down to the pad.

The north end of the range seemed to be the prime spot for landings today, which kept recovery in that area fairly busy. Unfortunately that left those of us on the south end a little bored so we went to help our northern friends quite often. So then how many recovery teams does it take to find one rocket?

As is normal, Transonics amassed most of those still missing in the field. They also made up the bulk of the final ones shot due to waiting on that cloud ceiling to clear. Coordinates for those have been generated, and the search is ongoing.

David Willden and the group from New Mexico helped out until around noon when they had to launch themselves back towards home. There help was greatly appreciated, and for them it was also further training for next year’s second launch series in Jal.

Phil Houseal was busy interviewing spectators, students and volunteers today. He even managed to catch me and coerce me into another interview this year. We seem to have a continued game between us. We both prefer to be behind the camera instead of in the pictures, so I make sure to catch him and get him in the pictures I post, and he catches me and makes me talk on camera.

Tomorrow is another big day on the range, with a full docket of rockets and extra curricular activities after launches are done as well. It will be a busy and long day. It should be fun though. Hopefully the cloud ceiling will open up earlier so we can start those rockets in a more continuous pattern. And the rain can hold off until after dark and all will be good.

Below is the launch schedule for tomorrow, Saturday. There are 7 schools launching a total of 22 rockets tomorrow.

Saturday, May 20, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Akins High School Joyce Sayce	5
Fabens High School Manny Moreno	3	2
Henrietta High School Doug Underwood	2	1
Maypearl High School James Herrod	1
McGregor High School Chris Kuhl	1	1
North Lamar High School Kathy Stewart	1
Northwest High School Elizabeth Mitias	4	1
7
Schools Launching
Totals	17	5
May 14^th Total Rockets	22

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1477962108891582.1073741889.100000334203350&type=3&uploaded=221

Good luck to all the schools launching on Saturday. I will update the blog after we complete our day again tomorrow. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Please remember that although there is no charge for the event, and these launches are open to public viewing, parking and seating is limited due to safety requirements. For this reason, SystemsGo has a provided a link for you to pre-order tickets for those in your party. This also provides SystemsGo with a way to monitor the number of people in attendance each year. This is in no way meant to discourage your attendance, but is instead to help them provide a great experience for students and spectators, while doing all possible to monitor safety issues and attendance numbers at any one time during the launches.

http://www.systemsgo.org/events/

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

#SystemsGo #Rockets2017 #FredericksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01 #SystemsGoNewMexico

Fredericksburg Rockets 2017-Thursday Day 1 Report – Friday Schedule

Thursday went well. It started off a little slow due to clouds and a low ceiling. Fortunately, it burned off in the afternoon and launches started lining up with only intermittent delays. it was basically a warm, humid, and windy day, but turned out well in the end for rockets. Recovery went fairly well with only a few Transonics still in the field at the end of the day. Hopefully they will still be recovered before the end of the weekend.

Original Fredericksburg High School STEM teacher and SystemsGo originator and program developer was on site today. He visited with folks, observed how things were working and even worked the Pad until around lunch. It was a nice treat having him on site a while again. He even said he might drop by again before the weekend is over.

We also had working guests from the new SystemsGo New Mexico. Director David Willden was helping a mission control as well as one recovery team that was from his group too. #SystemsGoNewMexico

The original schedule listed 22 rockets, but the final total launched was 19.

Below is the launch schedule for tomorrow, Friday. There are 7 schools launching a total of 25 rockets tomorrow.

Friday, May 19, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Buinger CTE Academy Michael Skrzynski	2	3
Hamilton High School Seaborn Achby	1	1
Marble Falls High School Leslie Alexander	2	1
RL Turner High School Bill Richardson	2
Tom Moore (Ingram) High School David Bunch	4
Union Grove High School Greg Park	2	1
University High School Dennis Oubre	4	2
7
Schools Launching
Totals	17	8
May 13^th Total Rockets	25

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1476991132322013.1073741888.100000334203350&type=3&uploaded=143

Good luck to all the schools launching on Friday. If I get a chance to do some updates during the day tomorrow , then I will but don’t count on it. It will probably just be one at the end of day. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Please remember that although there is no charge for the event, and these launches are open to public viewing, parking and seating is limited due to safety requirements. For this reason, SystemsGo has a provided a link for you to pre-order registration tickets for those in your party. This also provides SystemsGo with a way to monitor the number of people in attendance each year. This is in no way meant to discourage your attendance, but is instead to help them provide a great experience for students and spectators, while doing all possible to monitor safety issues and attendance numbers at any one time during the launches. These tickets are FREE. They can be found on the SystemsGo Events page. Look for the little ticket icon that says, “Admit One”.

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

#SystemsGo #Rockets2017 #FredericksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01 #SystemsGoNewMexico

Sunday, Day 3 and The Last Day of Houston Rockets 2017-Recap

Today, Sunday, was the last day of launches at the Smith Point site for the SystemsGo team. They had two more schools, Northstar High School and Booker T Washington High School and five more rockets on the original schedule.

This made for another long day on the range, or at least longer than originally anticipated, but it allowed all the students’ hard work their chance to fly. They were up and out on the range early enough to watch the sunrise while they waited for rockets to load on rails, as seen here.

The team finally finished packing up and were highway bound headed back to Fredericksburg at about 4:45 this evening.

One of the highlights of the day was from Northstar High School. A guitar playing, singing, rocket engineer, Mr. Ian Barthlolmee, sat down with Phil and gave the live stream audience a small concert while they waited for his team’s rocket to get clearance down at the pad. What an enjoyable treat for folks there and online. You just never know who you will find in this rocket science business. Thank you for the musical treat Ian.

Here are a few shots of the action from the day.

Here is Ian’s team cheering their launch.

These were provided by pad team member, Chelsea Burow. Seen here with the Sunday Pad Team.

She also provided the sunrise, and the lead image for the article tonight, as well as some in the Facebook album mentioned below.

And this one is of the final rocket team of the day, Booker T Washington’s Transonic:

Thank you, Chelsea.

Along with the ones Chelsea shared, here is a link for some really nice ones from today from David Brady, from NASA. He and his daughter, Erika, helped at the pad today. This is their second year to be a part of the action down in Houston. These are some really good pictures, be sure to check out the link.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m5wgwe636vpqilg/AADj-yt145Wm1ppMqRNsHrKma?dl=0

More pictures will be in two Facebook albums for you to view at:

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1472882699399523&type=3&pnref=story These are from Chelsea and myself.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1472979219389871.1073741887.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story Note, these are also the pictures by David Brady.

Event details will be available here each day of next week’s event in Willow City at Stewart Ranch. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Saturday, Day 2 For Houston Rockets 2017-Recap and Sunday’s Schedule

Today, Saturday, the SystemsGo team had seven schools and twenty rockets to launch on this, their normal full day of launching at the Houston location. It was a productive day, albeit a long and tiring day for the team at the range. The action finally ended and the Livestream shut down about 9:15 this evening.

Weather at the site was sunny with only slight clouds and some wind. Reports from recovery members say it was a beautiful day for launching rockets.

Phil and Rebekah had a very special guest at Mission Control today. Norman Chaffee, retired Deputy Director of NASA Johnson Space Center, was there.He consults with some of the schools in the area on their rockets and STEM programs. In the interview today, he remembered coming to Fredericksburg in the early days of these launches to consult with Brett Williams, program founder, on safety and logistics. It was a genuinely interesting interview as he recounted all his work history through the years with the space program, all the way to where he is now retired and helping young high school students learn.

Later in the day, Phil took time to talk to Christy Bible Glass about her history and how she came to work for SystemsGo. Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear much of hers because my system crashed on my phone and computer about that time, which is why the quality of her picture is so bad, and she appears to have a monocle over one of her glasses. Sorry about that Christy, maybe you can say you were practicing for the upcoming Pirates movie. “Arrgh!”

What I was able to hear and see was a really nice and interesting interview.

In spite of issues on my part, the team still had a great day on the range. Here are a few of the better screen grabs I managed to get today.

The rest of today’s screen shots will be posted on Facebook at the following address for public sharing:

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471968966157563&type=3

The link below is screen shots from yesterday’s action at the range. Chelsea Burow, pad operator, may add more to either of these albums later. I know she took some really nice pictures from the pad.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471692176185242.100000334203350&type=3&uploaded=36

Apparently students, teachers, parents and other humans were not the only spectators watching the rockets. This fellow was sent in by recovery team member, Steve Burrow.

The current launch schedule for Sunday is shown below and may also be downloaded from SystemsGo website at the following address: http://www.systemsgo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flight-Schedule-Rockets-2017-Houston-4-4-17-.2.pdf

Sunday, May 22, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Booker T. Washington HS Dr. Nghia Le	1	1
Northstar High School Alan Stone	2	1

Schools Launching 2
Totals	3	2
May 22^nd Total Rockets	5

Public access is available at this new site this year. A map to the location as well as directions are available at the SystemsGo Events page found here:

http://www.systemsgo.org/events/

There will also be Livestream from there again this year so friends and family can watch the action online, provided by Phil Houseal and Zach Pooser .

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Zach and Phil provide a great experience for both viewers at home and the students and team on site while helping to bolster the STEM program. Allowing the public to share in the actions and see what these students are accomplishing as they apply all they have learned and continue to learn from their launch results helps SystemsGo to grow interest in the future of the STEM program and the hands on approach to learning.

Please remember that since there is pubic access to this event this year, there are tickets for order and those may be found on the SystemsGo website as well at this link: https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Friday, Day 1 For Houston Rockets 2017-Recap and Saturday’s Schedule

Today, Friday was the first day of Houston rocket launches. This is new for this year. Usually Friday is just a set up day, but do to more rocket volume to achieve launching, Friday afternoon was added. Eight schools tested a total of 12 rockets this afternoon.

According to reports from team members at the site, all 12 rockets left the rail. That does not mean each was a perfect launch, but then that is why they are considered test vehicles. All in all it was a good day with fabulous weather, and a great new location with good results. And they get to do it all over again Saturday.

These are screen shots of the action in Houston. Quality isn’t always perfect but at least you can see some of what went on today. I will add more to Facebook and post them at some point on Saturday. The link to my page is down below these photos.

I do have more photos I grabbed from the live feed as well as some from team members that I will be posting Saturday morning. https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow

Here is the schedule for Saturday as listed on the SystemsGo website.

Saturday, May 13, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Brazosport High School Bradley Nelson	1
Brazoswood High School Dale Hobbs	3	1
Channelview High School Alan Stone	3
Davis High School Hasan Johnson	2
Kingwood Park High School Jim Brown	2
Liberty High School Matthew Williams	2	1
SF Austin High School Richard Hubbard	5

7
Schools Launching
Totals	18	2
May 21^st Total Rockets	20

Livestream is available again this year so friends and family can watch the action online. The link for that is on SystemsGo‘s website or posted here: http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Here is Phil Houseal keeping the Livestream action going:

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

SystemsGo Team Travels to Smith Point for an Early Start to Houston Rockets 2017-Friday’s Launch Schedule Included

The StsytemsGo team left today, Thursday, headed to Smith Point, near Anahuac, Texas down near Houston. This is a new location for this year. They arrived there early today, setting up the launch site, and readying everything for an early start, as launches begin Friday afternoon. This is new for this year.

Launches will continue all day Saturday, and half a day on Sunday with 17 schools launching a total of 39 vehicles.

The current launch schedule for Friday is shown below and may also be downloaded from SystemsGo website at the following address: http://www.systemsgo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flight-Schedule-Rockets-2017-Houston-4-4-17-.2.pdf

Friday, May 12, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Anahuac High School Kirk Moore	1	1
Dickinson High School Sara Malloy	1
Eisenhower High School Jacob Arriaga	1
Pasadena Memorial High School Katherin Melton	1
Pasadena Memorial High School Kyle Jurek	1
South Houston High School Kevin Herron	4
Victoria East High School Adam Wertman	2
Victoria West High School Cheryl Clark	1

Schools Launching 8
Totals	12	1
May 21^st Total Rockets	13

This new launch site, will allow public access this year. A map to the location as well as directions are available at the SystemsGo Events page found here:

http://www.systemsgo.org/events/

Phil Houseal and Zach Pooser will be on site providing the Livestream up-link again this year so friends and family can watch the action online. Here is the link to the live stream for the Houston launches.

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Zach and Phil provide a great experience for both viewers at home and the students and team on site while helping to bolster the STEM program. Allowing the public to share in the action and see what these students are accomplishing as they apply all they have learned in class, and continue to learn from their launch results, helps SystemsGo to grow interest in the future of the STEM program and the hands on approach to learning.

Just a note, the tickets are free of charge but are required for entrance. They are available on site at the gate as well but the preferred method is online at the link above.

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

SystemsGo New Mexico Inaugural Launches Were a Great Success Thursday in Jal

Congratulations to SystemsGoNM on a great day in Jal, NM Thursday. Six schools attempted launching a total of 10 rockets today and 9 of those 10 were successful launches. That is quite an impressive start for the New Mexico program branch. Staff from SystemsGo in Texas were very pleased with today’s launch outcome.

Program Director, Rebekah Hyatt had this to say, “SystemsGo NM has officially established their program! Jal high school was the first SG school to certify and launch a rocket! They are off to a fabulous start!”

All rockets tested this year were one pound/one mile vehicles, next year the program plans to add the next level transonic rockets to the docket. This will make next year another interesting year to keep an eye on this new program as transonic add their own set of challenges both for the students and the launch facilities.

To add to the great news, the program in New Mexico is growing and more schools may be added this next year.

Congratulations to the six schools that were part of this monumental inaugural launch this year. You were all part of history and did very well. Jal High School, Carlsbad High School, Hobbs High School, Lake Arthur High School, Loving High School, and Lovington High School, you are the first to build a launch a rocket in your schools and state as part of this program. You are now what new schools will watch and aspire to be and beat. This is a good thing. You have set your schools up for future successes. And as years pass you will find there will be a bit of friendly competition to achieve the best. This just keeps each new class reaching a little farther to learn that one thing that makes their project not only better than last year’s, but better than any other schools’.

In the beginning just getting off the rail is a huge success, but as years go by you want to improve those results. Some of you will be back next year, and some of you will not. For those that will not, you have something that no one after you will ever have again, you were the first to achieve success here today, and your success has set the bar for next year. For those that will be back, and for future groups after you, the bar is set, now it’s time to move forward and surpass it. Success now, is not matching what others have done, it is attempting to give those after you another measure to beat. This not only helps future students it helps your school’s program to continue and be successful.

The best part of this is that all you learned here in the program carries over into your success in the future. Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and whether you realize it or not, business, communication, and work place training will all help lead you to future success.

Here are a few high lights from today’s program:

Above are two photos from the launch site.

These are Stage 1 and Stage 2 at Jal Volunteer Fire Department. All photos are courtesy of Rebekah Hyatt, SystemsGo Program Director.

More photos from today’s activities are available here: https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1452809664740160.1073741877.100000334203350&type=3

This closes out the SystemsGoNM launch activities.

Tomorrow the team members from SystemsGo in Texas will head back to Fredericksburg and continue preparations for more launches.

Rockets 2017 will continue with two more launches in May. The first will be held in Smith Point just south of Anahuac, Texas for schools in the Houston area, on the weekend of May 12-14, 2017. If you have been to the Houston area launches in the past you may want to check out the SystemsGo website for information because this is a new location for that area this year. Information and a map link are available on the website.

Next the Stewart Ranch in Willow City, Texas will host the largest of the now three launch events on the weekend of May 18-21, 2017. This testing site covers the Fredericksburg and Hill Country area schools and all Texas schools not participating in the Houston launches.

The senior groups are tentatively scheduled to launch their Goddard level rockets at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico the week of June 26-30. These are not available for public viewing or Livestream due to being tested on a military facility, but blog and SystemsGo updates will be posted online as available during that week.

If you plan to attend any of this year’s launches please register for your attendance ticket at http://www.systemsgo.org/save-the-date-for-rockets-2017/ or they may be gotten at the gate. These are free but required for admittance to each site. Reserving them ahead at the website is preferred to obtaining them at the gate because the latter slows entrance to the site and may result in you missing the viewing of your intended launch.

You may also view any of the launches except WSMR on Livestream. That link will be available on the SystemsGo website closer to the launch.

The launch schedules for each venue are available at http://www.systemsgo.org/save-the-date-for-rockets-2017/ . I will post it here for each launch day as well. I want it to be as accurate as possible so I will refrain from posting schedules until the evening before each launch day in case there are any late changes.

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

More event details will be available here in upcoming days/weeks as events get closer. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will be posted during the events.

http://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.

Thank you for reading and following the SystemsGo Rockets.

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