Aspire is one project that can be considered a roaring success, despite a quite spectacular "failure" on its first launch.
Aspire I rocket reached 3.5 km and a speed of Mach 1.3! Built by groups at Bristol, Cambridge and several other Universities and UKSEDS members, she launched on 26th July 1992.
As those of you who saw the recent Tomorrow's World programme will have seen, Aspire I came to a rather sticky end, tail up buried in the mud. But those who worked on the project didn't see this as a failure, just a temporary setback. The team went on to form AspireSpace, an organisation who have set their sights on the all-too-real goal of acheiving orbit sometime in the near future.
The links below take you to AspireSpace's home on the web and also gives some photos of launches etc.
Technical details of Aspire I and all its successors can be found on these pages, so check them out!
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