Watch This Small-Scale Rocket Launch in Stunning Slow-Mo

Shelby Rogers

Would it really be a slow motion video if it wasn't from the Slow Mo Guys? Gavin and Dan set off to the U.S. to visit Purdue University's engineering department in Indiana. The school let the duo borrow its six-foot tall rocket powered by traditional solid fuel. However, the small-scale rocket is made of significantly less sturdy materials when compared to commercial rockets. In just four feet, the Purdue rocket can travel at speeds up to 130 mph. It can even move faster than the speed of sound.

For such a fast-moving subject, the guys needed an equally fast-moving camera. They shot the video at 28,000fps with a Phantom V2511. Gavin used a Phantom Flex 4K for their wide shots at a respectable 1,000fps. They even tacked a camera onto the rocket itself to track the rocket's flight path.

Gavin even let a student hold on to the Phantom and shoot the rocket launch, and the student gets one of the coolest shots in the whole video. It starts at the 6:48 mark, and we think the Slow Mo team might have a new camera assistant should they ever need one.

This isn't the first time the YouTube stars visited Purdue University. They toured Zucrow Labs after seeing a tweet about hypergolic propellants being studied at the school. Gav and Dan then filmed several videos there, most notably the iMac Annihilator video from December last year.

Purdue University students know quite a bit about rockets. The university boasts a successful hybrid rocket initiative, the purpose of which is to create a space vehicle "capable of delivering suborbital microgravity experiments to altitudes exceeding 62 miles."