A rocket has propelled a group of students from the University of Waterloo into the record books. The university’s rocketry team set a new world record last week for the highest-flying amateur liquid-fuel rocket, reaching an altitude of 63,497 feet at the 2026 Launch Canada Challenge in Timmins, Ont. The achievement marked the culmination of their year-long efforts, which included designing, building and testing Polaris, the team’s 17-foot-long rocket that weighs 300 pounds when fully fueled. “We started this year with the goal that we are going to break the world record,” said Waterloo Rocketry’s integration lead Niva Patel. The previous record was 56,590 feet set by the Yellow Jacket Space Program from Georgia Tech. Polaris beat that by nearly 7,000 feet. Students watching from the ground got emotional as the rocket surpassed its target. “I didn’t expect to start crying,” Patel admitted. “I definitely started crying there.” Waterloo Rocketry’s team lead, Luca Scavone, said any anxiety quickly faded away. “[The] nervousness turned into complete and utter joy.” But reaching record-breaking heights was only part of the team’s mission. The students also wanted to recover Polaris after the flight — something they were unable to do with their previous rocket. “This was actually more important to many of us than breaking the record,” said Patel. The team equipped Polaris with an extensive parachute system designed to bring the massive rocket safely back to Earth. “This whole system is just ridiculously overbuilt,” Scavone said. “You can tell that we were a little paranoid about not getting the rocket back this year.” That preparation ended up paying off. The parachutes deployed as expected and Polaris began its descent after a roughly seven-minute flight. The landing, however, wasn’t necessarily gentle. Video showed the rocket crashing through trees but, despite the rough landing, the rocket remained in one piece. “It landed about 1.5 kilometres away from where we initially launched it,” Scavone said. The successful flight marked a major milestone for the students and served as a launchpad for what could come next. Both Patel and Scavone will soon begin internships with the Canadian Space Agency and SpaceX. The record-breaking flight has taken the students to new heights, while proving that sometimes the reward is finding your way back home.
