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85-428: MR-12 is a Soviet/Russian sounding rocket . The MR-12 has a maximum altitude of 180 km, a diameter of 0.45 m, a length of 8.77 m and a fin span of 1.40 m. The MR-12 was first launched on May 1st, 1965, and it would remain in service until its retirement in 1997. This rocketry article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde , sometimes called

170-477: A research rocket or a suborbital rocket , is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to launch instruments from 48 to 145 km (30 to 90 miles) above the surface of the Earth, the altitude generally between weather balloons and satellites ; the maximum altitude for balloons is about 40 km (25 miles) and

255-656: A $ 200,000 loan from McGill University's board of governors. He was given a verbal promise for a $ 500,000 grant from the Canadian Department of Defence Production (CDDP), which was later reportedly denied due to bureaucratic opposition. In October 1961, Bull met with Charles Murphy, the head of the Ballistic Research Laboratory, to pitch his project for a supergun and was met with overwhelming support. The U.S. Army provided Bull with substantial financial backing and two 16-inch naval gun barrels complete with

340-417: A 5-inch gun system by welding a second section of barrel to the first barrel's muzzle, lengthening the barrel to 8.9 meters. The resulting gun system demonstrated a higher muzzle velocity at the muzzle exit. The longer barrel allowed the propellant gases to push on the projectile for a longer period of time. In September 1964, a ten-calibers extension was added to the 16-inch gun based on BRL's experiment with

425-453: A Low Altitude High-Velocity cone. Several models of test projectiles were fired or designed during Project HARP: These projectiles were fired on the island of Barbados and some were fired by the US Army's Ballistic Research Lab. The tube's slender design, which contained the rocket's payload, was very narrow and long, limiting what objects could be inserted into the tube. This limitation on size

510-530: A Sounding Rocket such as the Nike-Apache may deposit sodium clouds to observe very high altitude winds. Larger, higher altitude rockets have multiple stages to increase altitude and/or payload capability. The freefall part of the flight is an elliptic trajectory with vertical major axis allowing the payload to appear to hover near its apogee . The average flight time is less than 30 minutes; usually between five and 20 minutes. The rocket consumes its fuel on

595-409: A camera station set up on the islands of Barbados , Saint Vincent , and Grenada were used to photograph the trimethylaluminium trails released from the projectile during launch, which provided data on upper atmosphere wind velocities for different altitudes. The 16-inch HARP gun at Highwater Range was established in 1964 near McGill University to conduct flight tests and other general research on

680-410: A conventional rocket. Bull argued it would not need expensive rocket motors, firing a large gun wouldn't require the missile to throw away multiple rocket stages to break through the Earth's atmosphere to reach orbit. In theory, a sabot would protect the payload during firing and later fall away as the satellite inside emerges. During the late 1950s, Bull conducted preliminary launch experiments at

765-497: A land mount and surplus powder charges, a heavy-duty crane, and a $ 750,000 radar tracking system. Bull and Mordell officially announced the HARP project as a program under McGill University's Space Research Institute at a press conference in March 1962. HARP was presented as a research initiative dedicated to "developing low-orbital capacity for geodetic and atmospheric objectives". However,

850-502: A program dedicated to collecting atmospheric wind and temperature data. They were designed to carry a 0.9 kg payload to an altitude of 65 km, which consisted of radar reflective chaff to collect wind data and small radiosondes that returned radio telemetry of information like temperature and humidity as they drifted back down under large parachutes. This initial design for the 5-inch HARP gun reached an altitude of 130,000 ft when tested in 1961. The 5-inch L70 smoothbore guns

935-619: A small Liquid-propellant rocket to provide the GALCIT team necessary experience to aid in developing the Corporal missile. Malina with Tsien Hsue-shen ( Qian Xuesen in Pinyin transliteration), wrote "Flight analysis of a Sounding Rocket with Special Reference to Propulsion by Successive Impulses." As the Signal Corps rocket was being developed for the Corporal project, and lacked any guidance mechanism, it

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1020-511: A sounding rocket also makes launching from temporary sites possible, allowing field studies at remote locations, and even in the middle of the ocean, if fired from a ship. Weather observations, up to an altitude of 75 km, are done with rocketsondes , a kind of sounding rocket for atmospheric observations that consists of a rocket and radiosonde . The sonde records data on temperature , moisture , wind speed and direction, wind shear , atmospheric pressure , and air density during

1105-542: A survey or a poll". Sounding in the rocket context is equivalent to "taking a measurement". The basic elements of a modern sounding rocket are a solid-fuel rocket motor and a science payload . In certain Sounding Rockets the payload may even be nothing more than a smoke trail as in the Nike Smoke which is used to determine wind directions and strengths more accurately than may be determined by weather balloons . Or

1190-571: The Veronique (rocket) was began in 1949, it was not until 1952 that the first full scale Veronique was launched. Veronique variants were flown until 1974. The Monica (rocket) family, an all solid fueled which was pursued in a number of versions and later replaced by the ONERA. series of rockets. Japan was another early user with the Kappa (rocket) . Japan also pursued Rockoons. The People's Republic of China

1275-821: The WAC Corporal , Aerobee , and Viking . The German V-2 served both the US and the USSR's R-1 missile as sounding rockets during the immediate Post World War II periods. During the 1950s and later the inexpensive availability of surplus military boosters such as those used by the Nike , Talos , Terrier , and Sparrow . Since the 1960s designed for the purpose rockets such as the Black Brant series have dominated sounding rockets, though often having additional stages, many from military surplus. The earliest attempts at developing Sounding Rockets were in

1360-468: The exoatmospheric region between 97 and 201 km (60 and 125 miles). The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary to sound , which is to throw a weighted line from a ship into the water to measure the water's depth. The term itself has its etymological roots in the Romance languages word for probe , of which there are nouns sonda and sonde and verbs like sondear which means "to do

1445-443: The first stage of the rising part of the flight, then often separates and falls away, leaving the payload to complete the arc, sometimes descending under a drag source such as a small balloon or a parachute . Sounding rockets have utilized balloons, airplanes and artillery as "first stages." Project Farside utilized a Rockoon composed of a 106,188-m3 (3,750-ft3) balloon, lifting a four stage rocket composed of 4 Recrute rockets as

1530-599: The martin bird that appeared on the McGill University crest. Inside the gun barrel, the Martlet was surrounded by a sabot. This machined wooden casing protected the projectile as it traveled through the barrel by absorbing the combustive energy and then splitting apart in the air after the Martlet exited the barrel. The Martlets also carried payloads of metallic chaff, chemical smoke, or meteorological balloons to gather atmospheric data as well as telemetry antennas for tracking

1615-473: The 16-inch gun on Barbados conducted its first test series using the Martlet 1, the first of which flew for 145 seconds and reached an altitude of 26 km. It was the first Martlet flight to feature a radio transmitter beacon that tracked the vehicle's flight. The second test series was conducted in April 1963 with the new Martlet 2 missiles, which set the world's new gun-launched altitude record of 92 km. Around

1700-468: The 16-inch gun on Barbados was fired on January 20, 1963, marking the first time that a gun of this caliber was fired at a near-vertical angle. The 315 kg test slug reached an altitude of 3000 meters with a flight time of about 58 seconds at a launch velocity of 1,000 m/s before coming down a kilometer off-shore. The projectiles fired by the 16-inch HARP gun on Barbados belonged to a family of cylindrical, finned missiles called Martlets, named after

1785-403: The 3B model had ended. The Martlet 3D model was planned as a suborbital test rocket, using the first stage of the Martlet 4 solid rocket version. As the Martlet 4 was never built, no Martlet 3Ds were produced either. The Martlet 3E was a solid suborbital rocket designed to be fired from a smaller, 7-inch (180 mm) cannon used in the HARP project. Its basic concept revolved around packaging

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1870-437: The 5-inch HARP guns that could carry three times the payload with an altitude capacity of 350,000 ft. The 7-inch gun system was constructed from a 175 mm M113 gun whose barrel was smooth-bored and extended by 26 ft. In general, its projectiles were 1.6 m long and weighed 27 kg. However, it was also capable of firing 5 kg slugs at a muzzle velocity of 2,880 m/s. The 7-inch HARP gun also incorporated

1955-474: The 5-inch gun. However, while increased velocity and altitude was recorded for test flights, the extension failed in December after the eleventh shot was fired. In 1965, a successful extension of the 16-inch gun was established after enlarging the gun pit to accommodate the equipment's large size. The extension almost doubled the length of the gun to 120 feet and weighed nearly 200 tons, making the 16-inch Barbados gun

2040-748: The Aerobee ultimately powered the second stage of the Vanguard (rocket) , the first designed for the purpose Satellite Launch Vehicle , Vanguard. The AJ10 engine used by many Aerobees eventually evolved into the AJ10-190 which formed the Orbital Maneuvering System of the Space Shuttle. The Viking (rocket) was intended from the start by the Navy not only to be a sounding rocket capable of replacing, even exceeding

2125-483: The Barbados government due to expectations that the island nation would become heavily involved in space exploration research. The installation of the 16-inch gun began at the newly established High Altitude Research Facility in April 1962. A gun pit was dug into the island's coral base, and a concrete emplacement was built on a plateau so that the gun barrel could stand vertically. The 16-inch naval gun barrels provided by

2210-520: The CARDE (now known as Defence Research and Development Canada – Valcartier , or DRDC Valcartier ) using guns as small as 76mm. These experiments soon caught the attention of the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army's Chief of Army Research and Development, Lieutenant general Arthur Trudeau . At the time, aircraft engineers needed more information on the atmosphere's upper regions to design better jet planes. However, launching rockets into

2295-456: The Canadian government announced that it would pull all Project HARP funding after June 30, 1967. Despite Bull's attempts to resuscitate the program, the Canadian government withdrew its support in 1967. This decision promptly caused the U.S. Army to withdraw its funding as well, leading to the program's complete termination. Both the HARP guns at Barbados and at Highwater Range were shut down, though

2380-692: The Caribbean. One of the 5-inch HARP guns was acquired by the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory (which consolidated into the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in 1992) to measure the stratosphere's winds. The 5-inch gun was deemed successful as a low-cost launch system, costing only around $ 300 to $ 500 per launch. By May 1966, a total of the HARP program's 5-inch guns launched 162 flights at Wallops Island, 47 flights at White Sands Missile Range, 30 flights at Barbados, and 24 flights at Fort Greeley. The 7-inch HARP guns functioned as scaled-up versions of

2465-453: The HARP gun operated by BRL at Yuma Proving Ground launched an 84-kg Martlet 2 missile at 2,100 m/s, sending it briefly into space and setting a world altitude record of 179 km. This feat has remained the world altitude record for any fired projectile. Throughout 1966, the HARP program experienced a series of funding delays caused by immense opposition from critics in the Canadian government and growing bureaucratic pressures. Upon

2550-522: The HARP guns under the jurisdiction of the U.S. military remained operational. Project HARP's assets were transferred to Bull, who started a Space Research Corporation commercial operation to salvage his project. After HARP was cancelled, the 16-inch gun on Barbados remained on its emplacement, where it remains to this day, gradually rusting away. The guns used for Project HARP consisted of smooth-bore 5 inch, 7-inch, and 16-inch guns, all of which were designed to launch sub-caliber saboted projectiles into

2635-555: The HARP guns without traveling all the way to the launch site at Barbados. Although the Highwater 16-inch gun was only capable of horizontal test flights and could not be elevated higher than 10 degrees, it was frequently used to test new and experimental launch vehicles and gun systems under each gun loads and in free flight. The Highwater 16-inch gun was primarily used for missile-sabot structural integrity tests, charge development, rocket grain tests, and for testing vehicle performance inside

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2720-420: The HARP program's initial results, the U.S. Army agreed to provide $ 250,000 per year in funding. In 1964, the HARP gun on Barbados continued to primarily launch Martlet 2 missiles that carried a wide variety of payloads. Part of the reason was its low cost, since the firing of the Martlet 2 cost from $ 2500 to $ 3000 and took only half an hour to load. The new results from HARP convinced the U.S. Army to increase

2805-406: The Highwater gun in 1966 but failed to be properly tested in time. The Martlet 3 series consisted of advanced rocket-propelled projectiles. They were built and tested for the HARP project but were ultimately not successful due to restrictions in funding and a severe lack of technical information regarding large rocket grains' behaviour under high acceleration loading. When testing these projectiles,

2890-453: The Martlet 2A, the liquid payload was loaded into an aluminum, tapered liner inside the missile body. But by the development of the Martlet 2C series, the aluminum insert was abandoned altogether to allow the liquid payload to be housed in contact with the steel body, increasing the quantity of the liquid payload that could be carried. The Martlet 2G was an advanced test projectile with nearly all of its total 350 lb (160 kg) weight in

2975-414: The Martlet 4 series. The first was to have used three solid rocket motor stages and was planned to orbit approximately 50 pounds of payload. The second used liquid rocket motors and was planned to have orbited 200 pounds of payload. Both were about 28 feet (8.5 m) long and 16 inches (410 mm) in diameter, weighing about 2,900 pounds (1,300 kg) at launch. However, no Martlet 4 vehicles were built;

3060-620: The Soviet Union. While all of the early rocket developers were concerned largely with developing the ability to launch rockets some had the objective of investigating the stratosphere and beyond. The All-Union Conference on the Study of Stratosphere was held in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1936. While the conference primarily dealt with balloon Radiosondes , there was a small group of rocket developers who sought to develop "recording rockets" to explore

3145-561: The U.S. Army served as the barrels of the HARP gun. They had to be transported to the site on the U.S. Army landing ship, the Lieutenant Colonel John D. Page , with the U.S. Army Transportation Corps assistance, the U.S. Army Research Office , and the Office of the Chief of Research and Development. Hundreds of people from Barbados were employed to transport the two 140-ton gun tubes from

3230-433: The U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (now called the U.S. Army Research Laboratory ) at Yuma Proving Ground currently holds the world record for the highest altitude that a gun-fired projectile has achieved: 180 kilometres (111.8 mi). Project HARP originated as the brainchild of Gerald Bull , a renowned but controversial ballistic engineer specializing in high-velocity guns and gun propulsion systems. In

3315-559: The U.S.S.R in Moscow designed the R-06 which eventually flew but not in the meteorological role. The early Soviet efforts to develop a sounding rocket were the earliest efforts to develop a sounding rocket and ultimately failed before WWII. P. I. Ivanov built a three-stage which flew in March 1946. At the end of summer 1946 development ended because it lacked sufficient thrust to loft a sufficient research payload. The first successful sounding rocket

3400-794: The V-2, but also to advance guided missile technology. The Viking was controlled by a multi-axis guidance system with gimbled Reaction Motors XLR10-RM-2 engine. The Viking was developed through two major versions. After the United States announced it intended to launch a satellite in the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) the Viking was chosen as the first stage of the Vanguard Satellite Launch Vehicle. The last two Vikings were fired as Vanguard Test Vehicle 1 and 2. During

3485-497: The air to collect data was generally considered costly and inefficient. The U.S. military, in particular, was especially in need of a low-cost launch system that could cover altitudes that conventional aircraft and weather balloons couldn't reach to support the development of new supersonic aircraft and missile systems. By late 1960, CARDE and the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) conducted several feasibility studies surrounding small gun-launched probes' structural integrity. Around

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3570-560: The annual funding of the project from $ 250,000 to $ 1.5 million per year. By March 1964, Canada's Department of Defence Production (DDP) agreed to provide joint funding for the HARP program for a total of $ 3 million per year. However, HARP funding reportedly faced several obstacles in the form of bureaucratic sabotage due to opposition in the Canadian government. The funding promised by the DDP for July 1, 1964, to June 30, 1965, did not arrive until May 1965. During this period, McGill University covered

3655-422: The coast to the designated emplacement 2 1 ⁄ 2 miles from the beach using a temporary purpose-built railway. By late 1962, the HARP 16-inch gun was set up, and construction on workshops, storage buildings, radar installations, and other facilities neared completion. Around this time, the U.S. Army Research Office increased its financial support of the project to $ 250,000 per year. The first test shot from

3740-654: The course of investigations by the German peace movement , this cooperation was revealed by a group of physicists in 1983. The international discussion that was thus set in motion led to the development of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) at the level of G7 states. Since then, lists of technological equipment whose export is subject to strict controls have been drawn up within the MTCR framework. Project HARP A 16-inch (41 cm) HARP gun operated by

3825-419: The danger of in-bore detonation was considered a severe potential problem. The Martlet 3A was an 18-centimetre (7.1 in) diameter, gun-fired rocket projectile that theoretically could reach 500 km altitude. As HARP's first attempt at a low-cost sabotted rocket system, the projectile was built with fiberglass or aluminum bodies. A standard 6-inch rocket was bonded to an aluminum case. The rocket nozzle

3910-434: The design was never successful, despite several test firings. The Martlet 3B was similar to the Martlet 3A but using steel casings and attempting to solve some of the 3A model's other problems. The casings survived 5,100 feet per second (1,600 m/s), but the propellant failed at 3,400 feet per second (1,000 m/s). This was solved for later rockets by filling the propellant cavity with liquid, but only after developing

3995-557: The end of the Canadian government's participation in June 1967, the Canadian government had contributed $ 4.3 million and the US Army $ 3.7 million. On the American side, growing political and financial pressure caused by the Vietnam War and NASA 's focus on large-scale traditional rockets strained funding for the project as well, exacerbating the program's problems even further. In November 1966,

4080-493: The first stage with 1 Recruit as the second stage, with 4 Arrow II motors composing the third stage and finally a single Arrow II as the fourth stage. Sparoair , air launched from Navy F4D and F-4 fighters were examples of air launched sounding rockets. There were also examples of artillery launched sounding rockets including Project HARP 's 5", 7", and 15" guns, sometimes having additional Martlet rocket stages. The earliest Sounding Rockets were liquid propellant rockets such as

4165-567: The first successful Sounding Rocket the WAC Corporal . By the early 1960s the Sounding Rocket was established technology. Sounding rockets are advantageous for some research because of their low cost, relatively short lead time (sometimes less than six months) and their ability to conduct research in areas inaccessible to either balloons or satellites. They are also used as test beds for equipment that will be used in more expensive and risky orbital spaceflight missions. The smaller size of

4250-517: The flight. Position data ( altitude and latitude / longitude ) may also be recorded. Common meteorological rockets are the Loki and Super Loki , typically 3.7 m tall and powered by a 10 cm diameter solid fuel rocket motor . The rocket motor separates at an altitude of 1500 m and the rest of the rocketsonde coasts to apogee (highest point). This can be set to an altitude of 20 km to 113 km. Sounding rockets are commonly used for: Due to

4335-414: The funds to the best of its ability, although changes had to be made to the original plan. For each subsequent funding periods, the DDP repeatedly delayed HARP funding late into the fiscal year. The first attempts to improve the performance of the 16-inch gun at Barbados were made in 1964, primarily by increasing the barrel's length. In 1962, the Ballistic Research Laboratory increased the barrel length of

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4420-416: The gun and during the critical muzzle exit. In 1965, the barrel of the Highwater 16-inch gun was extended to a length of 176 ft, holding the record for the longest big-bore artillery piece in the world. The 16-inch HARP gun at Yuma Proving Ground was constructed in 1966 in order to establish a functional 16-inch gun on American soil and holds the record for achieving the highest projectile launched. It

4505-641: The high military relevance of ballistic missile technology, there has always been a close relationship between sounding rockets and military missiles. It is a typical dual-use technology , which can be used for both civil and military purposes. During the Cold War , the Federal Republic of Germany cooperated on this topic with countries that had not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty on Nuclear Weapons at that time, such as Brazil, Argentina and India. In

4590-405: The largest operational artillery piece in the world at the time. By the end of 1965, Project HARP had fired more than one hundred missiles at heights over 80 km high into the ionosphere . At this point, the project starting planning the launch of the Martlet 4, a projectile that used rocket jets that would ignite mid-flight to send the missile into orbit. For this endeavor, BRL designed

4675-530: The magnetosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere and mesosphere. Sounding rockets have been used for the examination of atmospheric nuclear tests by revealing the passage of the shock wave through the atmosphere. In more recent times Sounding Rockets have been used for other nuclear weapons research. Sounding rockets often use military surplus rocket motors. NASA routinely flies the Terrier Mk 70 boosted Improved Orion , lifting 270–450-kg (600–1,000-pound) payloads into

4760-461: The mid-1950s, Bull was working on anti-ballistic missile (ABM) and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) research at the Canadian Armaments and Research Development Establishment (CARDE) when he formulated the idea to launch satellites into orbit using an enormous cannon. Bull believed that a large supergun would be significantly more cost-effective at sending objects into space than

4845-421: The minimum for satellites is approximately 121 km (75 miles). Certain sounding rockets have an apogee between 1,000 and 1,500 km (620 and 930 miles), such as the Black Brant X and XII , which is the maximum apogee of their class. For certain purposes Sounding Rockets may be flown to altitudes as high as 3,000 kilometers to allow observing times of around 40 minutes to provide geophysical observations of

4930-468: The missile's flight. The Harry Diamond Laboratories designed several telemetry systems used in the HARP program. The firing of these Martlet missiles was always accompanied by a huge explosion that shook the houses within close proximity, leading to cracks in several areas. Since the Barbados government refused to recognize householders' damage claims, HARP fell into ill favor by much of the Barbados population. From late January to early February 1963,

5015-606: The post WWII era the USSR also pursued V-2 base sounding rockets. The last two R-1As were flown in 1949 as sounding rockets. They were followed between July 1951 and June 1956 by 4 R-1B, 2 R-1V, 3 R-1D and 5 R-1Es, and 1 R-1E (A-1). The improved V-2 descendant the R-2A could reach 120 miles and were flown between April 1957 and May 1962. Fifteen R-5Vs were flown from June 1965 to October 1983. Two R-5 VAOs were flown in September 1964 and October 1965. The first solid-fueled Soviet sounding rocket

5100-426: The project was halted before the design was completed. A guidance and control system were developed for the orbital mission by Aviation Electric Limited of Montreal under the direction of McGill-BRL-Harry Diamond Laboratory group. Infrared horizon sensors and sun sensors were included in calculating vehicle attitude . Information for on-board sensors was to be processed by the logic module, which provided commands to

5185-486: The project's long-term goal was to place satellites into orbit economically. In 1962, Bull and Mordell established a McGill University research station on Barbados (then still a British colony and part of the West Indies Federation ) as HARP's main base of operations for its 16-inch super gun. The site location was first suggested by Mordell, who believed that a launch site closer to the equator would allow

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5270-623: The projectile to procure extra velocity from the Earth's rotation to reach higher altitudes. In addition, the site's close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean made for the safe impact of re-entry projectiles. As a result of McGill University's close connections with the island's Democratic Labour Party , Bull met with the Barbados Prime Minister Errol Barrow to arrange the construction of a firing site at Foul Bay , St. Philip. HARP reportedly received enthusiastic support from

5355-481: The projectile. It was tested successfully with the Highwater gun and the Barbados gun but never proceeded beyond the engineering flight testing stage. The Martlet 2G-1 was a proposed space launch vehicle variant of Martlet 2G, which had a solid rocket motor in the projectile. The follow-on 2G-2 proposal was to have had a second rocket motor to place the second stage in orbit, though with little or no payload. After development, it underwent horizontal development firings from

5440-487: The projectiles fired from these gun systems were measured by radar chaff, aluminized balloons, trimethylaluminum trails, and sensors ranging from sun sensors to magnetometers . The 5-inch HARP guns were based on a modified 120 mm T123 service gun and used by the Ballistic Research Laboratory before the HARP program in order to fulfill the needs of the U.S. military's Meteorological Rocket Network,

5525-677: The results. After the start of WWII the CIT rocketry enthusiast found themselves involved in a number of defense programs, one of which, deemed Corporal, was intended to produce a bombardment guided missile the Corporal. Eventually known as the MGM-5 Corporal it became the first guided missile deployed by the US Army. During WWII the Signal Corps created a requirement for a sounding rocket to carry 25 pounds (11 kg) of instruments to 100,000 feet (30 km) or higher. To meet that goal Malina proposed

5610-522: The rocket grain in a case with elastic properties to transmit the lateral strain to the gun tube. The 3E model utilized a new rocket grain construction technique that consisted of laminating sheet double-base propellant grain under hydraulic pressure. By July 1964, the Marlet 4 program pursued developing an orbit capable multi-stage rocket system to be launched from the 16" Barbados gun. Two versions of full-scale orbital launch vehicle projectiles were proposed in

5695-428: The same time, BRL developed a smooth-bore, 5-inch gun system at Aberdeen Proving Ground that successfully launched a probe to altitudes exceeding 220,000 feet. In 1961, Bull resigned from CARDE and McGill University hired him as a professor. Working together with Donald Mordell, the university's Dean of Engineering, Bull moved forward with his space gun project and requested funding from various sources. He received

5780-435: The same time, development for the Martlet 3A began in the spring, with test launches commencing in September. By the end of 1963, approximately 20 Martlet 2 missiles were launched and regularly reached altitudes of 80 km. From these tests, researchers obtained a significant amount of atmospheric data as well as the internal ballistics of the 16-inch gun and the flight performance of the Martlet 2, 3A, and 3B. Impressed with

5865-622: The stratosphere and beyond. Amongst the speakers at the conference was Sergey Korolev who later became the leading figure of the Soviet space program. Specifically interested in sounding rocket design were V. V. Razumov, of the Leningrad Group for the Study of Jet Propulsion. A. I. Polyarny working in a special group within the Society for Assistance to the Defense, Aviation and Chemical Construction of

5950-576: The telemetry system that utilized Sun sensors to determine the projectile's altitude. This telemetry system would serve as an early precursor to the U.S. Army's Aeroballistic Dynamic Fuze (DFuze). By 1966, the HARP program had established several different launch sites around the United States and Canada, including a second 16-inch HARP gun at the Highwater Range in Quebec and a third 16-inch HARP gun at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. On November 18, 1966,

6035-568: The upper atmosphere. In addition to the High Altitude Research Laboratory at Barbados, a 16-inch HARP gun was constructed at the Highwater Range in Quebec and at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Smooth-bore 5-inch and 7-inch guns were set up at several different test sites, including Fort Greely , Alaska, Wallops Island , Virginia, Aberdeen Proving Ground , Maryland, and White Sands Missile Range , New Mexico. The data collected from

6120-743: The upper stage of the first two staged rocket the RTV-G-4 Bumper . Captured V-2s dominated American sounding rockets and other rocketry developments during the late 1940s. To meet the need for replacement a new sounding rocket was developed by the Aerojet Corporation to meet a requirement of the Applied Physics Laboratory and the Naval Research Laboratory . Over 1,000 Aerobees of various versions for varied customers were flow between 1947 and 1985. One engine produced for

6205-532: The use of gun-boosted rockets to increase payload and altitude capacity. Unlike the 5-inch HARP guns, all vertical high-performance flights for the 7-inch HARP guns were conducted at NASA's Wallops Island facility, where 34 vehicles were launched by May 1966. The 16-inch HARP gun in Barbados held the largest gun record globally, with a barrel length of 119 ft (36 1 ⁄ 4  m) and weighing 200 tons. It consisted of two 16-inch U.S. Navy gun barrels welded together and smooth-bored to 16.4-inch diameter. It

6290-667: Was Without Attitude Control. Thus it was named the WAC Corporal . The WAC Corporal served as the foundation of Sounding Rocketry in the USA. WAC Corporal was developed in two versions the second of which was much improved. After the war the WAC Corporal was in competition for sounding mission funding with the much larger captured V-2 rocket being tested by the U.S. Army. WAC Corporal was overshadowed at its job of cost-effectively lifting pounds of experiments to altitude, thus it effectively became obsolescent. WAC Corporals were later modified to become

6375-483: Was almost identical to the 16-inch gun on Barbados, being 119 ft long, but was limited by a 35-mile range restriction. However, unlike the Barbados gun, its projectiles could be recovered since they were not lost in the ocean upon their journey back down. The Yuma 16-inch gun was primarily used for flight tests, such as those testing altitude control and telemetry components. In 1966, the 16-inch Yuma gun underwent three firing series using wooden slugs, Martlet 2C's, and

6460-404: Was capable of firing at a muzzle velocity of 2,164 m/s (7,100 ft/s) with a maximum acceleration at launch of 15,000 g. It launched a 181-kg shot with an 84-kg payload that could reach an altitude of 181 km (595,000 ft). For propellants, the 16-inch gun used either the solvent type WM/M.225 or the solventless M8M.225, both manufactured by Canadian Arsenals Limited. During testing,

6545-532: Was created at the California Institute of Technology , where before World War II there was a group of rocket enthusiasts led by Frank Malina , under the aegis of Theodore von Kármán , known amidst the people of the CIT as the "Suicide Squad." The immediate goal of the Suicide Squad was exploring the upper atmosphere which required developing the means of lofting instruments to high altitude and recovering

6630-432: Was designed simultaneously with the Martlet 1 with a range of interest being 70 to 200 kilometers. Most carried multi-type research payloads studying the upper atmosphere and near-space conditions. Due to their low cost per missile launch, they were used to test out single payloads. Despite similarities in missile airframe, the Martlet 2A, 2B, and 2C featured differences in their structural materials and mechanical details. For

6715-399: Was extremely inconvenient when considering the future proposed payloads of Martlet rockets, including satellites and space probes. The cannon-like design also eliminated the capacity for crewed space travel as well as the launching of satellites carrying extremely sensitive scientific instruments and payloads due to the extreme acceleration placed on the projectile during firing. The Martlet 1

6800-501: Was supported by a pusher plate, which would impart the missile's acceleration through the aluminum wall casing. Fiberglass limited acceleration to 3600  g (corresponding to a velocity of 3,800 feet per second (1,200 m/s) at rocket ignition). The Martlet 3A's original objective was to carry a 40-lbs payload to an altitude of 500 km, which theoretically was feasible if the system could be launched at full gun pressures. The rocket motors' solid propellant deformed during firing and

6885-634: Was the M-100. Some 6640 M-100 sounding rockets were flown from 1957 to 1990. Other early users of Sounding Rockets were Britain, France and Japan. Great Britain developed the Skylark (rocket) series and the later Skua for the International Geophysical Year . France had begun the design of a Super V-2 but that program had been abandoned in the late 1940s due to the inability of France to manufacture all components necessary. Though development of

6970-497: Was the first test projectile of the HARP program. Designed in 1962, it was a 16-inch (406 mm) gun bore that weighed 450 lb (200 kg), was 6.6 inches (170 mm) in diameter and 70 inches (1,800 mm) long. Only four were manufactured, two of which were fired during the January and June 1963 test series. The Martlet 2A, 2B, and 2C represented the earliest of the Martlet 2 16-inch (406 mm) test projectiles. Martlet 2A

7055-629: Was the first vertical firing gun system developed under Project HARP. In 1962, a 10-ft extension was implemented for the 5-inch HARP gun by welding a second barrel section to the first, allowing it to launch projectiles at muzzle velocities of 1554 m/s (5,100 ft/sec) to altitudes of 73,100 m (240,000 ft). Throughout HARP, further modifications were made to the 5-inch gun, such as adding three sets of stiffening wires to maintain barrel alignment. Due to their small size, they were easily transported from their initial site at Aberdeen Proving Ground to different launch sites across North America and

7140-534: Was the last nation to launch a new liquid fueled sounding rocket, the T-7. It was first fired from a very primitive launch site, where the "command center" and borrowed power generator were in a grass hut separated from the launcher by a small river. There was no communications equipment- not even a telephone between the command post and the rocket launcher. The T-7 led to the T-7M, T-7A, T-7A-S, T-7A-S2 and T-7/GF-01A. The T-7/ GF-01A

7225-738: Was used in 1969 to launch the FSW satellite technology development missions. Thus the I-7 led to the first Chinese satellite, the Dong Fang Hong 1 (The East is Red 1), launched by a DF-1. Vital to the development of Chinese rocketry and the Dong Feng-1 was Qian Xuesen (Tsien Hsue-shen in Wade Guiles transliteration) who with Theodore von Kármán and the California Institute of Technology "Suicide Squad" created

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