Brunswick-based bluShift Aerospace launched a 20-foot prototype rocket Sunday, hitting an altitude of a little more than 4,000 feet in a first run designed to test the rocket’s propulsion and control systems.

It carried a science project by Falmouth high school students that measured its flight metrics.

The company, which launched from the northern Maine town of Limestone, the site of the former Loring Air Force Base, is one of dozens racing to find affordable ways to launch so-called nano-satellites.

They described the small rocket as an Uber to space.

bluShift’s rocket is also special because of is its hybrid propulsion system which is carbon neutral.

bluShift said orbit could be possible by 2024.