Norwegian rocket range confirms motor problems

The Andøya Rocket Range has released a statement confirming that The University of Queensland’s SCRAMSPACE project was not responsible for last week’s launch failure in Norway.

“The range can confirm that the SCRAMSPACE payload functioned as it should, and was in no way connected with the failure of the rocket,” the statement notes.

The “payload” was the SCRAMSPACE scramjet. The launch was designed to lift the scramjet to an altitude of 300km before releasing it, but the rockets carried the scramjet only about 5km up before plunging into the sea.

SCRAMSPACE Director and University of Queensland Hypersonics Chair Professor Russell Boyce said the launch was just the final part of a multi-year project that had achieved much of what it set out to achieve.

The SCRAMSPACE launch failure will not have any impact on other hypersonics research under way at UQ’s Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology.

Media: UQ Corporate Relations Manager Carolyn Varley, 3365 1120, 0413 601 248, c.varley@uq.edu.au.