You may be wondering what is going on right now. Well, what's happening is the "rocket" these kids built it coming into re-entry. When rockets do this, they get extremely hot because of how fast they are going. This combined with the fluid friction in the lower atmosphere is how you see meteors at night.
In fact, they never made it to orbit at all.
They start re-entry
Bill explains Friction
They float down to safety
You know those stories that you tell for the rest of your life... this is not one of those stories.