The History of Sounding Rockets and Their Contribution to ... - ESA

The scientifi c sounding-rocket activities were considerably increased during the International Geophysical
Year (June 1957 to December 1958).
The Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aerodynamiques (LRBA) set up in 1946 in Vernon contributed
greatly to the development of Veronique, the fi rst sounding rocket in Europe. The fi rst version N (total
of ten) had a length of 6.5 m, a launch mass of 1 t, a thrust of 40 kN and could lift payloads of 60 kg to an
altitude of 70 km. The version used during the IGY already had a guidance system and could reached 210
km altitude with a 60 kg payload.
In the period between its fi rst fl ight in May 1952 from Hammaguir and 1973 when the last one was fi red,
about 83 Veronique sounding rockets were launched. The last and most powerful version - the 61 M - was
able to launch a 100 kg payload to 325 km altitude.
The LRBA was also responsible for coming up with the name ‘Veronique’, which was derived from VERnon
electrONIQUE. In the 1960s, the laboratory developed and improved various new rocket motors for
the Vesta sounding rocket (141 kN) and the Vexin motor (283 kN), which was used as the fi rst stage for the
French Diamant A rocket, which fi rst fl ew in 1965.
Later, in1970, the laboratory used a mixture of nitrogen peroxide and UDHM (a derivate of hydrazine) as
propellant. This resulted in the development of even more powerful rocket motors such as the Valois (344
kN) and Viking (617 kN). Viking was used for Ariane-1 and later for Arianes-2, 3 and 4. Ariane-1 used fi ve
Viking engines: a cluster of four to build the fi rst stage and the fi fth as the second stage. The names of all
these different engines start with a ‘V’ for Vernon.
The fi rst European country to do so, France established a national space agency (CNES) in May 1962. This
had been recommended by the Comité des Recherches Spatiales set up in January 1959, of which Prof. Auger
became the fi rst Chairman. One of CNES’s fi rst tasks was to coordinate the launching of sounding rockets.
CNES engineers and technicians soon learnt to master this new research tool and the scientists at the various
research institutes learnt to build space hardware
that could survive in the harsh environment in which
sounding rockets operated. CNES soon extended its
fl ight activities to launch bases in Norway (Andøya),
Sardinia, Spain, India, South America (Argentina) and
the Antarctic. This was when France started its coordinated
exploration of space, i.e. fi rst with sounding
rockets and later extended with satellites.
By the end of 1962, France had developed for its programme
two families of sounding rockets:
- solid-grain propellant rockets: Bélier, Centaure and
Dragon
- liquid-propellant rockets: the Veronique family (later
also Vesta).
The fi rst years of the French national sounding-rocket
programme saw a fl ight rate of 20-30/ year, which
decreased in the 1970s. In 1974/75, the French government
reoriented its space policy and terminated its
national sounding-rocket programme in 1976, after
having launched nearly 300 rockets carrying French
scientifi c and meteorological payloads.
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A Dragon sounding rocket on its mobile launch table