Watch | Students perform record-breaking rocket launch in Spain

The rocket named “Stratos II+” built by a team of students from the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in Spain was launched on October 16 from El Arenosillo, the launch base of INTA in attempt to beat what the university described as the unofficial European altitude record for the amateur built rockets.

The attempt was successful with the rocket reaching 70,500 feet high, beating the previous European record of 41,010 ft set by the rocket's predecessor, Stratos I in 2009.

The rocket was built entirely by the students including the largest student-build 'hybrid' rocket engine, a cross between a solid-fuel and a liquid-fuel rocket.

It took 4 years and 40 people to design and build the rockets “Stratos II” and “Stratos II+” . To ensure safe flight and landing there were over half million launch simulations performed and on the day of the launch airspace around the launch base was closed.

The rocket capsule contained electronic equipment that is going to be used to conduct a set of experiments, including measuring how far radio waves from space penetrate into Earth's atmosphere, measuring a position without a GPS and live broadcasting from the rocket.