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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0939.PDF
FLIGHT, 13 July 1961 Missiles and Spaceflight. . . SPACE LAUNCHINQS THE CHEAP WAY AN unorthodox American hit town last week. Holder of asenior defence astronautics appointment, yet sharplyL critical of the main lines along which his country's spaceprogramme is moving, this first-time visitor to Britain brought along a brainful of space ideas which he presented effectively to avariety of audiences. He is Mr John D. Nicolaides, technical director for astronauticsin the US Bureau of Naval Weapons, who began his programme here with an exclusive interview with Flight, talks at the Ministryof Aviation and Admiralty, and lectures before the British Inter- planetary Society in London and the British Institution of RadioEngineers in Oxford. From the interview and the two lectures stems this account of Mr Nicolaides' space credo and US Navydevelopments. Mr Nicolaides' main submission is that too much effort is beingdirected towards very large boosters and heavy spacecraft, and not enough towards cheap launching methods and simple, lightweightsatellites. He suggests three ways in which satellite-launching costs and complication could be reduced: by launching (a) from aircraft,(b) from the surface of the sea, and (c) from submarines or surface vessels. These three techniques are represented by the US Navy'sCaleb, Hydra and Sea Scout projects. Illustrated for the first time on this page, Caleb is the currentdesign of aircraft-launched, four-stage, solid-propellant rocket developed by the US Navy. It is an improved version of anoriginal vehicle (based on clusters of modified underwater missiles) which in 1958 was used in a series of six attempts to place satellitesin orbit from F4D Skyray aircraft. Once bitten by the excessive advance publicity on the Vanguardprogramme, the US Navy was twice shy in talking about the 1958 aircraft launches, with the result that nothing was announced at thetime. At Oxford last week, Mr Nicolaides commented: "The facts are, we might haveplaced a satellite in orbit •— one trackingstation did pick up the right signals at theright time." The redesigned Calebhas had two full-scale tests employing livefirst stages and dummy upper stages. Satellitesup to 501b in weight could be launched bythis technique, and im- provements in perform-ance could result from the development oflarger stages or the use of higher-performanceaircraft. The cost of the vehicle is approximately $50,000 in small-lot production, and its weight is some 3,0001b. Under Project Hydra, a number of promising tests have beencarried out at the Naval Missile Center, Pt Mugu, California, in which the launch rockets have simply been floated vertically on thesurface of the sea. The first attempt—completely successful—was on March 18, 1960, using a 4ft Hydra 1 wooden vehicle poweredby a small aircraft rocket. Hydra 1A was "a novel vehicle," according to Mr Nicolaides, and his audience at the BIS lecture onJuly 5 will regard this as the understatement of the year. Depicted in the film on Hydra shown on that occasion was the Genie-boostedemergence from the deep of a 105ft telegraph pole, fitted with lead plates and fins. "Pole 1," to use its alternative designation, "becamean effective test vehicle for the vehicle and its instrumentation." The 46ft, ten-ton Hydra 2 followed, built for the NMC by LongBeach Naval Shipyard. The feasibility of operating Hydra rockets from floating dry docks was established. In this manner, it isclaimed, rockets of almost unlimited size can be launched. For satellite launching from ballistic-missile submarines, mer-chant ships or other vessels, the US Navy is forcefully presenting the case for Sea Scout, a highly attractive four-stage, solid-propel-lant launch vehicle based on Polaris (first and second stages) and the upper two stages of Scout. The development programme forthis vehicle could easily be phased into the existing Polaris pro- gramme, it is claimed, without much modification to facilities or One of the early rocket vehicles mounted beneath the wing of an F4D Skyray in the US Navy's aircraft-launch programme. It is possible that at least one satellite was injected into orbit by means of this technique Mr John D. Nicolaides, photographed at the British Institution of Radio Engineers' Convention in Oxford last week equipment. USS Observation Island, for example, could easily beadapted to handle Sea Scout in between Polaris firings. As with Hydra, one advantage of Sea Scout is that it couldlaunch a satellite into almost any desired orbit from almost any caleb The redesigned rocket vehicle, designated Caleb, developed by the US Navy for aircraft launching of satellites following the initial series of six attempted launches in 1958 point on the seas. Sea Scout 1, 31ft shorter and 6,0001b lighter thanthe Scout vehicle, would carry payloads comparable to those of Scout, e.g., 1061b in a 460-mile orbit at 45° inclination. Usingimproved Scout upper stages, Sea Scout 1A would increase this payload to 1791b. The later use of Polaris A2 and A3 motors wouldfurther raise the figure to 2701b and 4201b respectively. The techniques of Caleb, Sea Scout and Hydra, Mr Nicolaidesbelieves, could be adopted and used successfully by Britain. Economical launching from the sea or air around the UnitedKingdom would result. As far as the US Navy is concerned, it is practising what MrNicolaides is preaching by way of developing simpler and smaller satellites. The weight of the Transit navigation satellite, originally2651b, will have been reduced to 751b by next spring in spite of many improvements in the satellite's performance. A 981b weathersatellite has been proposed which would provide information direct to users all over the world instead of second-hand through a centraldata-collating centre as with Tiros. This could, it is claimed, be in use next year if the decision to go ahead were given.In these thoughts, as in the Navy's contribution to the Project Anna geodetic satellite (a joint Army/Navy/NASA/Air Forceprogramme could be operational in less than a year), the emphasis is on making practical and widespread use of space (both in scienti-fic research and in applications such as navigation and weather study) without delay. In Mr Nicolaides, the US Navy has a worthygospeller. K. T. O.
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