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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0579.PDF
GHT, 4 May 1961 7.6 LENGTH (m) 8.2 700 WEIGHT(kg) 843 180 PEAK ALTITUDE(km) 225 /85° LAUNCH \*ITH\ \PAYLOAD BELOW / 23 PAYLOAD WEIGHT(kq) 38.5 (TYPICAL) 17.1 PAYLOAD DIAMETER(cm) 70 MAX ACCELERATION (g) 589 CAJUN NIKE - YARDBIRDWERTIGO) 12.9 LENGTH ^m) 17.2 2&40 WE I GHT (kg) 3,232 555 PEAK ALTITUDE (km) 1,770 /85" LAUNCH WITHV \ PAYLOAD BELOW ) 38.5 PAYLOAD WEIGHT(kq) 9 (TYPICAL) 22.9 PAYLOAD DIAMETER (cm) 80 MAX. ACCELERATION (g) EXOS STRONGARM Two-stage, three-stage and five-stage solid-fuel sounding rockets (from "Upper Air Structure Measurements with Small Rockets" by Dr Leslie M. Jones of the University of Michigan). Nike-Yordbird is now in preparation by the Michigan group University of Michigan, in his paper, Upper Air Structure Measure- ments with Small Rockets. Four of the vehicles mentioned by Dr Jones are illustrated here, and one of these, the two-stage Nike-Yardbird, is now being developed as a replacement for the Nike-Cajun. The new rocket, which should make its first flights later this month, will achieve heights up to 225km and will there- fore overlap the perigee altitudes of a number of satellites. The Michigan University group's work had led to four general conclusions:— (a) The two-stage vehicles formed a middle group between the Aerobee (and other large and elaborate rockets) and the very small vehicles typified by Areas. The larger rockets had the function of carrying new experiments and establishing first values, the middle group was useful in making limited surveys to establish average values and trends, and the very small rockets would then take over for synoptic firings in statistical numbers. (b) The two-stage solid-propellant rockets—and to a surprising extent the three-stage and five-stage vehicles also—could be assem- bled and launched by the scientific group which built and operated the payload. Major launch facilities were not required. (c) It had been shown that payloads originally weighing 70kg and designed for a 38cm diameter rocket could be reduced to 25kg and 15.2cm diameter. The high accelerations of the solid-fuel rockets, ranging up to 90g, had caused little difficulty in payload Prof Sir Harrie Massey (right) Chairman of the British National Committee on Space Research, with Mr. M. 0. Robins, UK project manager for the first joint Anglo- American satellite "Flight" photograph design, and nosecone heating had proved a serious problem only with those rockets which exceeded 500km peak altitude. (d) By taking advantage of cheap available solid-propellant units developed for the Services, the cost of sounding rockets could be comparable to that of the other parts of an upper-air project. For a university-type operation the rocket vehicle, scien- ti'ic instrumentation, launching and telemetering, and data reduc- tion and analysis each accounted for about 25 per cent of the total cost of an experiment. The first Italian launching of a sounding rocket was described t' Prof Luigi Broglio, chairman of the Italian Committee for Space Research of the National Research Council, in the paper, f'r"t Italian Experiment Using Sodium Cloud Technique. This experiment represented the first phase of a programme to determinev nds, temperatures and densities in the upper atmosphere, andv -!"> carried out in collaboration with the US National Aeronauticsar i Space Administration. The Italian side of the programme involved collaboration between the National Research Council and the Armed Forces Rocket and Missile Committee, and the initial launch had been directed by Prof Broglio with the assistance of a research group of Italian Air Force officers. The launch took place on January 12, 1961, from the range at Perdasdefogu, Sardinia. A Nike-Cajun rocket carried a sodium-cloud experiment to a maximum height of 150km, and photographic observations were made from seven stations in Sardinia and on the Italian mainland. From the observations obtained, upper-atmosphere winds were determined over a useful height band. The Italian programme is to be continued with further experiments which will be synchronized with similar launchings by NASA from Wallops Island in order to obtain a more complete picture of the upper-atmosphere circula- tion. Many of the scientific results reported at Florence referred to what are known as "special events" such as major solar flares. Although no event reported at the formal sessions was quite as special as that involving Maj Gagarin, news of which interrupted the symposium more than somewhat during mid-week, a spectacu- lar effect on the atmospheric drag of satellites was measured at the time of the large solar flare of November 12, 1960. Graphs shown by Dr Luigi G. Jacchia of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (The Atmospheric Drag of Artificial Satellites during the November I960 Events) indicated a sharp peak in the drag curves for seven satellites, involving increases from twice to eight times the normal values, which coincided exactly with the period of the magnetic storm associated with the solar flare. The drag increase was more marked for the higher-altitude satellites. One of the curves in Dr Jacchia's paper was based on work by G. V. Groves of University College, London, and this work was detailed in a symposium paper by Dr Groves entitled Correlation of Upper Atmosphere Air Density with Geomagnetic Activity, November I960. Another interesting aspect of the November solar flare was that Discoverer 17, launched shortly after the occurrence of this flare, when the radiation level above the atmosphere was several thou- sand times greater than the normal cosmic ray background, was able to bring back evidence of this radiation in photographic emulsion and metallic components in the recovered instrument capsule. This examination of the first objects to have been recovered after being subjected to this radiation was especially valuable, Prof H. C. van de Hulst, COSPAR presi- dent (left); Dr J. Kaplan, University of California (second from right); and Prof M. Nicolet, CNRE, Brussels (right) "Flight" photograph
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