Student design team Waterloo Rocketry’s rocket Polaris flew up to 63,497 feet during its launch on Thursday, August 20 at 11:50 a.m., breaking the world record for the maximum height reached by an amateur liquid rocket.
Liftoff took place in Timmins, Ontario, at Launch Canada, the largest student rocketry challenge in Canada. The launch marks the first nominal flight of a liquid rocket in Canada and the first successful recovery of a rocket in the team’s history. US-based George Institute of Technology previously held the record of 56,590 feet with the Yellow Jacket Space Program’s launch of their rocket Vespula.
Polaris launches into flight at Launch Canada. (Photo credit: Waterloo Rocketry)
Polaris is the third liquid-fueled rocket developed by the team, after Borealis in 2024 and Aurora in 2025. Polaris is also their largest rocket to date, standing at 213 inches tall and eight inches wide. At its maximum height during this nominal flight (also known as the apogee), Polaris deployed an initial drogue parachute to slow down its descent. Another main parachute was then deployed at a lower altitude to safely bring the rocket to the ground.
Polaris’ successful flight is a stark change from the previous year, when Waterloo Rocketry’s Aurora rocket failed to deploy its parachute and was ultimately lost in the Northern Ontario forest. ”[Liquid rockets] are more complicated, and it gives you more of an engineering challenge,” said Thomas Fairhead, third-year mechanical engineering student and senior member of the team. Other issues also plagued launch preparations from the start of the event. Wireless connection issues between mission control and the rocket, bad weather conditions, and a fueling tube failure caused by hot smoke delayed Waterloo Rocketry from launching Polaris until the fourth of the event’s five days.
Despite the rocky start, Waterloo Rocketry media lead and second-year mechanical engineering student Niva Patel stated that it was “our most successful flight ever.”
