Twenty Teams To Gather At The Bonneville Salt Flats For Launches Up To 20,000 Feet

More than 20 American college and university teams will gather on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats Saturday, May 17 to launch rockets they designed. The rockets will reach heights up to 20,000 feet, carrying onboard science and engineering experiments -- and high hopes among those on the ground to win prizes and bragging rights.

The "launchfest" is the pinnacle of the 2013-2014 NASA Student Launch competition, organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL and sponsored by ATK Aerospace Group of Magna, UT. The event is 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. MDT at the Salt Flats in Tooele County, Utah. In the event of rain, the event will move to Sunday May 18 at the same site and time.

An awards banquet will follow at 6:30 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Community College's Miller Campus at 9750 S. 300 West in Sandy, Utah. The NASA Launchfest Twitter feed will provide real-time coverage of the banquet, including up-to-the-minute awards information.

Leading up to the launch event, NASA will host a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" event 1:30-3:30 p.m. CDT Thursday, May 8, featuring Student Launch organizer and Marshall education specialist Julie Clift, Bruce Tiller, deputy manager of the Space Launch System Program Booster Office at Marshall, and Gordon Russell, ATK Launch Systems project manager at Marshall. The three will preview the student rocketry event and discuss its full-scale inspiration -- NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). SLS is the advanced, heavy-lift rocket set to carry a new generation of explorers to destinations deeper in space than ever before visited, including an asteroid and Mars.

Students will make pre-launch technical presentations to NASA and ATK engineers Thursday, May 15 at Cyprus High School in Magna, Utah, where they also will show off their flight vehicles at a Rocket Fair from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. MDT. Media are invited to the event, where they'll have an opportunity to talk with students about their high-flying creations. Cyprus High School is situated at 8623 W. 3000 West, Magna, Utah.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/education/studentlaunch