The Space Concordia Rocketry Division, a group of more than 60 full-time students at Concordia University in Montreal, have been working with BlackVue, a well-known dash cam brand, as they work towards their goal of designing, building, and launching a liquid-propelled rocket to space.

The largest student-built rocket

The project began as part of the Base 11 Space Challenge, a competition with a prize pool of $1 million for the first student group to accomplish this feat. Although the competition was canceled in 2021, the team at Space Concordia Rocketry Division has continued their hard work in pursuit of this goal. To date, they have produced the largest and most powerful fully student-built liquid-propelled rocket ever, standing at approximately 40 feet tall and powered by an in-house engine that can produce over 35 kilonewtons of thrust.

Working with BlackVue

One of the key priorities for the team is to secure high-quality footage from onboard the vehicle. To achieve this, they have designed a radial camera system that consists of four BlackVue 2-channel camera sets. Each set of cameras is mounted to the inside of the rocket, 90 degrees apart from one another. The front cameras are facing downward to capture the fins of the rocket and the exhaust plume of the engine, while the rear cameras are facing directly outward to capture stunning footage of our planet from outer space.

“Working with BlackVue cameras has been an excellent experience for the team. The cameras are easy to detach from their mounts, which has made working with them during the design process simple. Additionally, the ability to see live footage of the cameras’ views via WiFi on a phone has made it easy to properly position them, and it also provides peace of mind that the cameras are functioning and recording properly when they need to be.” said Sefi Kalmanson, Camera Systems Lead at the Space Concordia Rocketry Division.

The footage captured by these cameras promises to be nothing short of spectacular. With their ease of use and high-quality output, BlackVue cameras have proven to be an excellent choice for the Space Concordia Rocketry Division. As the project progresses, we look forward to seeing the footage captured by the BlackVue dash cams, and we wish the team the best of luck in their future pursuits and projects!

You can watch the Space Concordia Rocketry Division firing the world’s most powerful student-built rocket engine here.