Categories: Launches

The Most Unique Rocket Launch You’ll Ever See

A girandola taking off during a night launch. Via Pyropage.com

Have you ever heard of a girandola? I had not until we came across this video — which is pretty incredible! This might be one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen.

Girandolas are flying horizontal wheels and are a favorite of pyrotechnicians.

But as rudimentary as the setting looks in the video, girandolas are high precision, finely tuned instruments. According a group of fireworks professionals called the Pennsylvania Organization of Recreational Chaos (PORC), “you must have every driver (rocket motor) fire at the same time and be precisely tuned in order for the girandola to fly. There is very little room for error or it will not fly.”

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You can find more info about girandolas at the link above, or here and it looks like they are available for purchase here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/