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Aftershock II did more than approach space. The single-stage rocket, designed and built by the University of Southern California’s student-run Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (USC RPL), reached a team-reconstructed apogee of 470,400 feet—about 143.3 kilometers—after launching from Nevada’s Black Rock Desert on October 20, 2024. That is above the commonly used 100-kilometer Kármán-line boundary, making the flight a suborbital spaceflight as well as the highest and fastest amateur-rocket performance USC RPL says it had recorded.
The result should be described precisely: USC RPL reported the record from its own post-flight analysis, and the available sources do not establish certification by an independent international record-keeping body.
The record, in numbers
| Measure | Aftershock II | Benchmark cited by USC RPL |
|---|---|---|
| Apogee | 470,400 ft (about 143.3 km), with an uncertainty of ±27,300 ft at 3σ | CSXT GoFast: 385,800 ft (117.6 km) |
| Maximum speed | 5,283 ft/s (1,610 m/s; approximately Mach 5.5) | GoFast: 5,019 ft/s (1,530 m/s) |
| Earlier student-rocketry benchmark | — | USC Traveler IV: 339,800 ft (about 104 km) |
| Motor | GEM8-R4000 | — |
| Vehicle mass | 322 lbm (146 kg) | — |
USC’s Aftershock II page uses approximately 143.3 kilometers for 470,400 feet; another presentation of the metric conversion has been rendered as about 144.3 km. The original feet measurement and its stated uncertainty are the least ambiguous way to report the result. USC also refers in one place to a previous amateur record of roughly 380,000 feet, while identifying GoFast elsewhere as 385,800 feet. This article uses the more specific GoFast figure and notes the discrepancy rather than treating the rounded number as a separate record.
At 143.3 km, the rocket reached roughly 89.5 miles and about 1.4 times the Kármán-line altitude. Even the lower edge of the stated uncertainty remains above 100 km.
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USC RPL’s Aftershock II specifications and record account
Who built Aftershock II?
Aftershock II was developed by USC RPL, an undergraduate organization at the University of Southern California. “Student-built” means the team designed and manufactured major systems in-house; it does not mean that every raw material, sensor, electronic component, motor element or launch-support item was made by students.
The vehicle was a minimum-diameter, single-stage solid-propellant rocket. Its more than 110-inch-long airframe used an in-house filament-wound carbon-epoxy structure with co-bonded insulation. The structure served both as the combustion pressure vessel and as the airframe, an efficient arrangement that also imposes demanding manufacturing and inspection requirements.
The contemporary account of the flight identified Black Rock Desert, Nevada, as the launch site and October 20, 2024, as the launch date. Public reporting followed in November, while the altitude result depended on later data reconstruction.
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Contemporary report on the October 2024 launch
What powered the flight?
USC RPL lists the GEM8-R4000 motor with these vacuum-performance figures:
- Maximum thrust: 4,220 lbf (18,771 N)
- Burn time: 16.3 seconds
- Total impulse: 51,529 lbf-s (229,212 N-s)
- Total vehicle mass: 322 lbm (146 kg)
- Dry mass: 127 lbm (57 kg)
- Propellant mass: 200 lbm (90 kg)
Maximum thrust is a peak value, not the average thrust over the 16.3-second burn, so it should not be used to calculate the rocket’s acceleration throughout the flight. The reported top speed corresponds to hypersonic flight, but Mach number changes with altitude and temperature; “about Mach 5.5” describes the reported maximum rather than a constant speed.
Did it actually reach space?
Yes, under the commonly used 100-kilometer Kármán-line convention. Aftershock II’s reported apogee was about 43 km above that boundary.
- The flight was suborbital: the rocket climbed on a ballistic trajectory and returned to Earth.
- It did not achieve orbital velocity, deploy a satellite into orbit or remain in space.
- It carried no people.
- The Kármán line is a convention for defining “space,” not a physical wall where the atmosphere suddenly ends.
At the same time, 143 km is close to the Federal Aviation Administration’s 150-km upper-altitude limit for a qualifying U.S. amateur rocket. That makes the flight unusually high within that regulatory category, but it does not mean the FAA certified the altitude record.
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FAA requirements for amateur rockets
How was the altitude measured?
USC RPL says it combined onboard avionics data with flight-path reconstruction, advanced filtering and simulation. The result was then internally reviewed and validated, with an uncertainty of ±27,300 feet at three standard deviations (3σ).
This is more involved than reading a consumer GPS display. High-speed ascent, vibration, changing atmospheric conditions and temporary loss of navigation signals can all complicate a direct altitude measurement. USC’s earlier Traveler IV documentation noted that its GPS did not maintain a continuous lock and that several avionics instruments were used together to estimate apogee.
The important qualification is who performed the validation: the available Aftershock II source describes USC’s internal analysis, not an independent audit by a neutral record authority. The defensible wording is therefore “USC RPL reported” or “according to the team’s post-flight reconstruction.”
USC’s Traveler IV altitude-analysis notes
Which record did it break?
“Amateur record” and “student record” are not interchangeable categories. USC RPL compares Aftershock II with CSXT’s GoFast for the broader amateur-rocket benchmark and with USC’s own Traveler IV for student rocketry.
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Traveler IV was reported in 2019 as the first entirely student-designed and student-built rocket to cross the Kármán line, with a conservative estimated altitude of 339,800 feet and 90 percent confidence that it exceeded 100 km. Aftershock II then went substantially higher and faster. A claim about the highest university, solid-propellant, recovered or student-designed rocket could use a different comparison set.
USC’s 2019 Traveler IV milestone
What the recovery and engineering story adds
Altitude was only one part of the mission. A successful spaceshot also requires a stable ascent, a motor that performs as expected, avionics that survive acceleration and vibration, usable flight data, parachute deployment and recovery of the vehicle.
USC later described landing damage to Aftershock II and used subsequent vehicles, including Malibu and Daybreak, to improve recovery and payload capabilities. That progression matters because a one-time altitude peak and a repeatable launch system are different engineering achievements.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What changed with Daybreak in 2026?
USC’s newer Daybreak vehicle crossed the Kármán line after launching on April 18, 2026, but it flew lower than Aftershock II. USC reported an apogee of 331,790 feet above ground level and a maximum velocity of 4,700 ft/s, approximately Mach 4.3.
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Daybreak was not presented as an altitude-record attempt. Its objectives were repeatable spaceshot operations, recovery, avionics and structures, plus payload integration for student organizations from Embry-Riddle, the University of Michigan and Arizona State University. Because Daybreak’s altitude is reported above ground level while historical figures may use mean sea level, direct numerical comparisons also require care.
As of August 18, 2026, USC RPL’s own site still lists 470,400 feet as its highest altitude. That is a statement of the team’s current achievement list, not proof of a universally maintained, independently adjudicated leaderboard.
USC RPL current achievement list
What U.S. amateur-rocketry rules have to do with it
For the FAA’s amateur-rocket category, the operation must be suborbital and unmanned, stay below 150 km and remain below 200,000 pound-seconds of total impulse. Operators generally request authorization through the applicable air-traffic process, including FAA Form 7711-2 for a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization.
Those rules address airspace and operational safety. They do not independently verify the rocket’s achieved apogee or award a world record. “Amateur” in this context is a regulatory and organizational classification, not a synonym for unsophisticated hardware.
Why the flight matters
Aftershock II shows what a university team can accomplish when propulsion, composite structures, avionics, software, flight safety and recovery are treated as one system. The larger educational value is the progression from Traveler IV’s first student spaceshot, through the higher Aftershock II flight, to vehicles designed for reliable recovery and payload operations.
That progression turns a headline-making altitude attempt into practical systems engineering: collecting imperfect data, quantifying uncertainty, learning from landing damage and building processes that can be repeated by the next student cohort.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Aftershock II did not merely approach the edge of space. According to USC RPL’s post-flight analysis, it crossed the 100-km Kármán-line convention and reached roughly 143 km, with a reported maximum speed of 5,283 ft/s. USC says that performance surpassed the cited amateur altitude and speed benchmarks, but the claim should be presented as a team-reported result with its measurement method, uncertainty and record category clearly identified.
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