FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0876.PDF
888 FLIGHT, 29 June 1961 Missiles and Space flight... An ingenious nosecone was used in the June 6 launch from White Sands, New Mexico, of an Aerobee-Hi rocket designed to obtain and recover specimens of dust and micrometerorites from heights between 40 and 105 miles. At 40 miles the outer nose-section moved forwards and the eight folded panels extended outwards, as shown. The panels remained open as the rocket coasted to its apogee of 105 miles and descended to 55 miles, when they were re- tracted and the outer section drawn back prior to recovery by parachute. (See "Micro- meteorites Captured") as more-sophisticated electronic devices involving the applicationof proportional navigation). The question of the best way to employ rocket propellants in space is still apparently unsettled. Prof D. F. Lawden, back in Europe for the first time since he went to Canterbury, New Zealand, is one of the pioneers of this field of investigation, and perhaps the leading authority. For many years he has contended that one must drive interplanetary vehicles like the Paris taxi-man does his cab; foot hard down on the accelerator, or else the brake—maxi- mum rocket thrust, or none at all, in a specially calculated pro- gramme. Now, however, he has discovered that this may not always be best, but the matter is still subjudice. Mr D. G. King-Hele of the RAE is much in demand at meetings like this, as his work on the evaluation of atmospheric properties from the observation of Earth satellites has deservedly earned him worldwide esteem. He is these days getting down to the finer points of his study. One interesting reflection of the dependence on upper-air properties on solar activity is that the atmosphere has contracted since the peak of the Sunspot cycle: there is now only a third of the air at 200km height that was measured to be present there in 1958. Mr King-Hele (6ft 3in in his socks) should be one of the first to feel the effects if the trend continues. Another apparently unexpected effect of the Sun on satellite behaviour was evinced by the behaviour of Echo I, the American balloon. The pressure of light is, of course, something not usually felt, although for a long time the physicists have assured us that it exists. Small effect that it may seem, it had a profound effect on the orbit of this particular satellite, with the result that the Echo will stay in orbit for perhaps another 20 years (instead of several months, as at one time thought), although, punctured by micrometeorites, it is now deflated and useless. Prof K. Schiitte, the Munich astronomer, had a comment to make about this. The aerodynamicists had their say about re-entry problems on the last day. Mr J. V. Becker of NASA described the manoeuvres of a | 2 P£rW RL-IO ENGINES 6 P&W RL-IO ENGINES I- '- 4 ROCKETDYNE J-2 ENGINES . 2 ROCKETDYNE F-l ENGINES LOX/LH2 5TH STAGE i winged vehicle coming into the atmosphere from space: if it entered too high (an overshoot) or too low (an undershoot) he showed how it was possible, by rolling the aircraft to one side or the other (rather, perhaps, than by adjusting its incidence) to adjust the glide-path to make landfall at or near the required spot. The roll would adjust the rate of descent (as well as direction) but would leave the airflow unaltered, as was desirable if unexpected aero- dynamic heating problems were to be avoided. He also alluded to such vehicles as being piloted by humans possibly without electronic aids, by "the seat of the pants," in fact; and showed that this had been accomplished in simulator studies, despite the unusual behaviour of aircraft controls at the very high speeds involved. In his concluding remarks Dr von Karman rejoiced that the pilot still had his uses, and recalled that a test pilot had once asked him, "Who can build an autopilot weighing only 1501b, having a working life of several years, and produced by unskilled labour T' The next symposium of the Academy, in 1962, has as its subject Man in Space. T. R. F. NONWEILER MICROMETEORITES CAPTURED Illustrated at the head of this page is the experiment carried out on June 6 by the US Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories to recover specimens of dust and micrometeorites from an altitude of over 100 miles by means of an Aerojet-General Aerobee-Hi research rocket. The launching was carried out at the Naval Ordnance Missile Test Facility at White Sands, New Mexico, with the operating sequence as outlined in the caption to the photographs. The equipment designed to obtain the specimens comprised boxes containing electron-microscope screens and triple-layer strips of plastic material on each of the petal-like panels. Also carried in the nose section was a 16mm camera, a . r radio beacon for tracking purposes, and the parachute recovery system (which operated at 20,000ft with a pilot parachute and 10,000ft with the main chute). Since the first Aerobee launch in Nov- ember 1947, more than 300 Aerobees have been fired. Aerojet's family of operational sounding rockets consists of the Aerobee 100, 150, 150A and 300, in addition to the more-powerful solid- propellant Astrobee 200, 250, 500 and 1,500.LOX/LH24TH STAGE (LN-K) 8 Y' ROCKETDYNE F-l ENGINES LOX/RP-I 2ND STAGE (LH-JL) LOX/RP-I 1ST STAGE (LN-I) L0X/LH2 3RD STAGE (LN-UI) One concept for NASA's gigantic Novalaunch vehicle is the five-stage version here illustrated, which uses a cluster of eight Rocketdyne F-l engines as first stage, two F-ls as second stage, and upper stages iis indicated. The vehicle would be over 330ft high and would have a first-stage diameur of 65ft. Four-stage and six-stage versiens are also being studied, and the latter wouid be some 396ft high
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
