The History of Sounding Rockets and Their Contribution to ... - ESA
The History of Sounding Rockets and Their Contribution to ... - ESA
The History of Sounding Rockets and Their Contribution to ... - ESA
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>The</strong> numbers, country <strong>of</strong> origin (Table 5-3) <strong>and</strong> objectives <strong>of</strong> the experiments fl own under the ESRO programme<br />
are well-documented in ESRO publications SP-76 <strong>to</strong> SP-80 for the years 1964 <strong>to</strong> 1970. However,<br />
no publications were <strong>to</strong> be found in the archives <strong>of</strong> <strong>ESA</strong> or the Swedish Space Corporation for the years<br />
1971 <strong>and</strong> 1972. This is probably due <strong>to</strong> the fact that in 1971, as already stated, the ESRO Council decided <strong>to</strong><br />
terminate rocket activities in 1972 <strong>and</strong> the associated sounding-rocket team was disb<strong>and</strong>ed in 1972/1973.<br />
Table 5-3. Annual numbers/country <strong>of</strong> origin <strong>of</strong> sounding-rocket experiments flown by ESRO<br />
Origin <strong>of</strong> experiment Number <strong>of</strong> experiments Total no.<br />
Country 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970<br />
Belgium 1 - 2 - 1 4 (3) 11<br />
Denmark - - 5 3 2 1 (0) 11<br />
France 1 - - 2 2 5 (1) 10<br />
Germany 1 4 5 7 5 9 (21) 52<br />
Italy - - - 1 1 2 (1) 5<br />
Netherl<strong>and</strong>s - 1 3 3 2 2 (3) 14<br />
Spain - - - - - - (1) 1<br />
Sweden - - 1 2 6 4 (4) 18<br />
Switzerl<strong>and</strong> - - - - - - (2) 2<br />
United Kingdom - 5 13 13 14 8 (25) 78<br />
ESRO/ESLAB - - - - 1 2 (-) 3<br />
Total 3 10 29 31 34 37 61 205<br />
( ) refers <strong>to</strong> data drawn not from <strong>of</strong>fi cial ESRO publications, but from archived internal reports.<br />
With regard <strong>to</strong> the fi gures given in Table 5.3, it has <strong>to</strong> be recalled that almost all <strong>of</strong> the ESRO Member States<br />
conducted, in addition <strong>to</strong> the experiments listed here, either national or bilateral sounding-rocket launches,<br />
in most cases with NASA. <strong>The</strong> <strong>to</strong>tal number <strong>of</strong> scientifi c sounding-rocket experiments per ESRO Member<br />
State carried out in the period 1964 <strong>to</strong> 1974 was published in ESRO SP-97, <strong>and</strong> is shown <strong>to</strong>gether with the<br />
corresponding research areas in Table 5-4.<br />
B: 20 (ATM, ION, STAR)<br />
CH: 7 (ATM, ION)<br />
D: 95 (ATM, ION, SUN, STAR, PLASMA)<br />
DK: 32 (ATM, Propagation)<br />
E: 3 (ATM, STAR)<br />
F: 20 (ATM, ION, SUN, PLASMA)<br />
I: 10 (STAR, PLASMA)<br />
NL: 18 (ION, SUN)<br />
S: 26 (ATM, ION)<br />
UK: 163 (ATM, ION, SUN, STAR, PLASMA)<br />
Total: 394 scientifi c experiments<br />
51<br />
Table 5-4. Total number (national<br />
+ ESRO) <strong>of</strong> scientific (i.e. excluding<br />
technology <strong>and</strong> meteorology)<br />
sounding-rocket experiments <strong>and</strong><br />
their research area by Member<br />
State (1964-74)