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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

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. 25 A Dragon sounding rocket on its mobile launch table
26 A separate list, scanned from an old document in the ESRO archives, is available as Annex 1 to Chapter 4.2. It records about 180 French national sounding-rocket fl ights launched during the period 15 October 1962 to April 1969 and provides information on the following: - type of rocket used (eight, with Centaure, Veronique and Dragon making up 90%) - dates of launches - launch ranges (14 used, but 63% used Hammaguir) - altitude reached (15 to 2035 km range covered, but 77% explored the 100-200 km range) - fl ight objectives (type of experiment or routine measurement) - scientist and/or institution responsible for payload - fl ight result (e.g. 49 total failures recorded). A further separate shortlist of eight French sounding-rocket experiments, fl own in the framework of ESRO’s programme covering 1964-72, was also found in the ESRO archives (see Annex 2 to Chapter 4.2). Over the period 1962-69, the French national programme used, for civil/scientifi c purposes, eight different types of sounding rocket, delivering the following levels of performance: Sounding rocket Max. apogee Payload mass % used Centaure 195 km 30 kg 47% Veronique 325 km 100 kg 23% Dragon 460 km 60 kg 20% Bélier 85 km 30 kg 3% The other types were Vesta, Titus, Tacite and Rubis. Together, their share amounts to 7% of the scientifi c sounding rockets fl own. Regarding the scientifi c disciplines covered by the French national programme, the following breakdown was found: Atmospheric physics (vapour trail, neutral composition /density, temperature, pressure) 28% Ionosphere (wave propagation, ion/electron densities and composition) 24% Magnetic fi eld (geomagnetic and electric fi elds) 13% Solar physics (IR, UV and X-rays) 13% Astronomy(radio, UV, X- and gamma-ray astronomy) 10% Energetic particles (terrestrially trapped radiation, particle precipitation) 5% Biology (microgravity effects on living organisms) 4% Planetology (including zodiacal light) 3% After the termination of the French national sounding-rocket programme in 1976, only sounding-rocket activities involving international cooperation continued. French scientists contributed to launches jointly carried out with the USSR from the Heyss Islands in the Arctic and from the Kerguelen Islands. French groups also participated with Germany in the Porcupine programme, which was devoted to the study of auroral plasma, with Sweden and with the USA (ten joint fl ights). With the phasing-out of the French national programme, most sounding-rocket installations such as those at the Guiana Space Centre were closed down. In the mid-70s that Centre was still being used for rocket
Page 1 and 2: HSR-38 November 2006 The History of
Page 3 and 4: ii Published by: ESA Publications D
Page 6 and 7: Rationale for Recapitulating the Hi
Page 8 and 9: 1. Scope This report fi rst describ
Page 10 and 11: 2. Historical Background In many ar
Page 12 and 13: - In Moscow, Russian spacefl ight p
Page 14 and 15: V2 as a war missile, pushed by the
Page 16 and 17: developed for use during the Intern
Page 18 and 19: General Remarks on Rocket Developme
Page 20 and 21: 3. Birth of the Space Age: Use of S
Page 22 and 23: ESRO/ESA and European national soun
Page 24 and 25: energy distribution of low-energy p
Page 27 and 28: 20 Launch of a Centaur II sounding
Page 29 and 30: 22 Table 4-1. Breakdown of launches
Page 31: 24 - rocket-motor launch preparatio
Page 35 and 36: 28 - a further experiment (RN 104)
Page 37 and 38: 30 The main building at Esrange, ne
Page 39 and 40: 32 - ESRO’s sounding-rocket progr
Page 41 and 42: 34 4.3.6 Early Italian sounding-roc
Page 43 and 44: 36 Research Programme, which includ
Page 45 and 46: 38 In the end, Kiruna was chosen to
Page 47 and 48: 40 Swedish space-science groups par
Page 49 and 50: 42 - January/February 1970 from Esr
Page 51: 44 Scientifi c discipline ESRO-fl o
Page 54 and 55: 5. ESRO’s First Sounding-Rocket P
Page 56 and 57: Its sounding-rocket activity enable
Page 58 and 59: The numbers, country of origin (Tab
Page 60 and 61: Table 5-6. Major national research
Page 62 and 63: 6. Sounding-Rocket Programmes Devot
Page 64 and 65: The Maxus 5 sounding rocket on the
Page 66 and 67: Very-long-duration Russian sounding
Page 68 and 69: 7. Research in Space and Industrial
Page 70: Similar technology transfers and co
Page 73 and 74: 66 17 sets of Proceedings (1973 to
Page 75: 68 40. Space Science and me, Bengt

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?