April 2025 New Zealand Rocketry Association members launched ‘Meraki II’ from Mt White Station in the South Island of New Zealand.

The two-stage rocket, designed by Ethan Kosoof with support from Kelvin McVinnie, Chris North and Dr. Martin Van Tiel, reached Mach 2.8 on the first stage O7800, before the 2nd Stage N3100 ignited 19 seconds into the flight and accelerated it to Mach 5.6 (Hypersonic).

Two minutes into the flight, Meraki II reached the Kármán line at 100km where space officially starts), and at 3 minutes, reached it's peak altitude of 121.589km | 398,914ft AMSL, per the onboard GPS. The rocket returned to earth after 13 minutes and was recovered 5 hours later, 11km from the launch site, after several hours of hiking through dense bush by team members Mark McVinnie and Jack Davies.

Wikipedia Amateur Rocketry Page records Maraki II as the latest of only 4 successful amateur spaceshots and notes the flight was.

• First successful amateur spaceshot outside of the United states

• Current velocity record-holder

• Lowest impulse to space, <60,000 N-s.

The achievement has gained attention world wide. 

NZRA Facebook Page recorded over 30,000 views in 7 days

Stuff Article and Video "Kiwis launch world’s first self-funded rocket to space"

RNZ Interview with NZRA Member Dean Spittle

One News "Kiwi-built amateur rocket reaches space: 'Pretty amazing"

The Press "Amateur rocketeers hit space, set world record"

Reddit "Amateur kiwi rocket goes hypersonic to space"

Linkedin Meraki 2 NZ's First Amateur Rocket to reach space 

Space is of immense strategic importance around the world, and New Zealand’s unique location and conditions make it an attractive choice for an increasing amount of space activity 

The New Zealand Space Agency Website 

Careers in Space

Rocket Lab Careers

Dawn Aerospace

Kea Aerospace

Outthere.space

SpaceOps NZ

Astrix Astronautics

KiwiStar Optics

Zenno Astronautics

NZRA members have one thing in common. They love rocket launches !

With the advent of Rocket Lab launching satellites into space from New Zealand we have seen a surge of interest from Kiwis keen to learn more about rocketry and educators wanting to inspire a new generation of students into maths, science and engineering.

What ever your interest in rocketry we are keen to help you in your journey. 

Visit our FACEBOOK group for the latest news.

The Nike Team double the power of their 7.4m 277kg Nike Smoke rocket boosting it to 20,000ft at the NZRA National Launch Day 2023. 

Thanks to Dean Taylor for his excellent article and photos published here.

The team are members of the university club UC Aerospace, who successfully test flew their rocket at the NZRA launch site 25th May 2023. The team went on to compete at the Spaceport America Cup in New Mexico USA, where they placed first in their category and third overall.

Team members included NZRA members Jack Davies (Mentor), Alicia Smith (Team Lead), Grayson  Spittle, James Graham, Jacob Saunders, Caleb Melchers,  Pieter Leigh, Peter Lee, Ryan Nowacki, and Anisha Satya. Other members of the team include Henry Eden-Mann, Reuben Van-Dorp, Avalon Beker, James Mun, and Nghĩa (Max) Văng.

Team Lead Alicia Smith articulated the teams journey brilliantly in this interview with Jesse Mulligan at Radio New Zealand 8th August in this article "UC engineering students 'rocketing' to success.

See The Nike Smoke Details Here