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

5. ESRO’s First Sounding-Rocket Programme (1964-72) Devoted to
Space Science
Even before the formal setting-up of ESRO in 1964, the predecessor organisation COPERS (see Chapter 3)
had already decided from the outset that an international sounding-rocket programme and a scientifi c-satellite
programme should become the two pillars of the fi rst eight years of ESRO activity.
Initially, the sounding-rocket programme was four times larger in annual budget terms than the satellite
programme. This situation was reversed, however, in the early 1970s,when the ESRO Council decided on
14 July 1971 to terminate its sounding-rocket activities in 1972 and to extend the scope of the European
(i.e. ESRO) space programme from 1973 onwards with the start-up of new application satellites (telecommunications,
Earth observation) programmes, the development of the Ariane launcher, and the construction
of the Spacelab laboratory, Europe’s contribution to the US Space Shuttle programme. This fundamental
change in European space policy was associated with the transformation of ESRO into ESA, the European
Space Agency.
The ESRO Council’s decision to terminate ESRO/ESA sounding-rocket activities did not call into question
the value of such activities, but refl ected the Member States’ desire to reduce the fi nancial envelope
of the Mandatory Programme, of which the Science programme constitutes the largest component. The
sounding-rocket programme was selected for termination within ESA because this move was considered
to cause the least damage, taking into account the fact that all of the larger Member States, such as France,
the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as Sweden and Norway, could continue their existing national
programmes.
The initial motivation for starting a large-scale sounding-rocket programme within ESRO in 1964 had been
to foster scientifi c cooperation between space scientists from all ESRO Member States and to share and
optimise the scientifi c results of sounding-rocket experiments. The ESRO programme was designed to be
complementary to, rather than compete with, the various national programmes, several of which had already
existed before ESRO was formally set up.
The ESRO policy of starting with sounding-rocket activities was based on exploiting two major advantages
of rockets compared to satellites:
(a) relatively short payload development and integration times, due to the lower safety and reliability requirements,
and
(b) considerably lower project costs at Agency and national laboratory level, because the personnel and
administrative efforts associated with payload development, integration and fl ight operations were seen
to be much lower than for satellite missions.
Sounding-rocket activities allowed the continuation and extension of laboratory-type experimentation and
made it possible - in contrast to satellite experimentation - to take higher risks during payload and rocket
subsystem development and to apply new technologies. Sounding rockets provided the ideal transition stage
from scientifi c laboratory working methods to later satellite experimentation. Sounding-rocket payload development
served as an educational tool for learning how to build scientifi c equipment that could survive
the harsh launch environment (several 10’s of g) experienced by sounding-rocket payloads and small satellites.
In addition, sounding-rocket and scientifi c-satellite activities were complementary, so that sounding rockets
were used in the following domains where satellites/balloons could not be used or would be a much more
expensive alternative:
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