By VINCE REMBULAT 

The Bulletin

Rocket launches may not always go accordingly.

Just ask NASA, which scrubbed its share of lift-off missions over the years.

The Give Every Child A Chance Summer STEM / STEAM program at French Camp Elementary School experienced technical difficulties earlier this month only to be rescheduled for the following day.

Brittany Castaneda, who is the STEAM / STEM — the latter is an acronym for Science Technology Engineering and Math while STEAM stands for the same thing but only with “Art” added on -- coordinator for the rocketry curriculum, indicated that the problem with launch was in the firing mechanism for the Estes Gnome model rocket.

“The kids designed their own rocket,” she said, referring to the youngsters in the GECAC program who ranged in age from 5 through 13.

According to Chuck Crutchfield, who the Director of Community Outreach & Special Programming for GECAC, most of the rockets in the French Camp program were capable of soaring to heights of 1,000 to 1,200 feet.

Because of that, the rockets are limited to the rural areas, in this case, French Camp and Banta.

Castaneda noted that this particular STEAM/STEM program will travel to various school locations on a two-week rotational basis.