User:Marshallsumter/Radiation astronomy2/Sounding rockets

Additional technology used to benefit astronomy includes sounding rockets which may carry gamma-ray, X-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared detectors to high altitude to view individual sources and the background for each wavelength band observed.

In 1927, E.O. Hulburt of the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and associates Gregory Breit and Merle Tuve of the Carnegie Institution of Washington considered the possibility of equipping Robert H. Goddard's rockets to explore the upper atmosphere. "Two years later, he proposed an experimental program in which a rocket might be instrumented to explore the upper atmosphere, including detection of ultraviolet radiation and X-rays at high altitudes."

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight.

Sounding in the rocket context is equivalent to taking a measurement.

The rockets are used to carry instruments from 50 to 1500 km above the surface of the Earth, the altitude generally between weather balloons and satellites (the maximum altitude for balloons is about 40 km and the minimum for satellites is approximately 120 km). Certain sounding rockets, such as the Black Brant X and XII, have an apogee between 1000 and 1500 km; the maximum apogee of their class. ... NASA routinely flies the Terrier Mk 70 boosted Improved Orion lifting 270 - 450 kg payloads into the exoatmospheric region between 100 and 200 km.

A common sounding rocket consists of a solid-fuel rocket motor and a science payload. The freefall part of the flight is an elliptic trajectory with vertical major axis allowing the payload to appear to hover near its apogee. The average flight time is less than 30 minutes, usually between five and 20 minutes. The rocket consumes its fuel on the first stage of the rising part of the flight, then separates and falls away, leaving the payload to complete the arc and return to the ground under a parachute.

Sounding rockets are advantageous for some research due to their low cost, short lead time (sometimes less than six months) and their ability to conduct research in areas inaccessible to either balloons or satellites. They are also used as test beds for equipment that will be used in more expensive and risky orbital spaceflight missions. The smaller size of a sounding rocket also makes launching from temporary sites possible allowing for field studies at remote locations, even in the middle of the ocean, if fired from a ship.

The Vertikal sounding rocket is one of many sounding rockets used by Russia and formerly by the Soviet Union, in addition to satellites, as part of an extensive solar ultraviolet and X-ray astronomy research effort. Vertikal 1 carried a Polish instrument for X-ray examinations of the Sun. Vertikal 1 and 2 studied solar radiation in the wavelength range 0.1 nm to 150.0 nm with regard to X-ray emission of the quiet Sun and solar X-ray bursts.

Terrier-Sandhawks
The Terrier-Sandhawk at right was flown from the Kauai Test Facility from Pad 12 on May 14, 1976, as an X-ray experiment.

Aerobees
"Development of the Aerobee liquid-propellant sounding rocket was begun in 1946 by the Aerojet Engineering Corporation (later Aerojet-General Corporation) under contract to the U.S. Navy. The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins University was assigned technical direction of the project. James A. Van Allen, then Director of the project at APL, proposed the name "Aerobee." He took the "Aero" from Aerojet Engineering and the "bee" from Bumblebee, the name of the overall project to develop naval rockets1 that APL was monitoring for the Navy. The 18-kilonewton-thrust, two-stage Aerobee was designed to carry a 68-kilogram payload to a 130-kilometer altitude."

"In 1952, at the request of the Air Force and the Navy, Aerojet undertook design and development of the Aerobee-Hi, a high-performance version of the Aerobee designed expressly for research in the upper atmosphere.2 An improved Aerobee-Hi became the Aerobee 150 [imaged on the right at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.]"

An Aerobee 170, second image down on the left, had a nominal altitude of 240 km. The Aerobee 170A had four fins (A) versus three without the A designation.

An "Aerobee 350 [on the left was] launched on its first full flight test, 18 June 1965."

Apaches
"The Apache solid-propellant rocket stage was used with the Nike first stage. Identical in appearance to the Nike-Cajun, the Nike-Apache could reach higher altitudes because the Apache propellant burning time was longer (6.4 seconds versus Cajun's 4 seconds). It could carry 34-kilogram payloads to an operating altitude of 210 kilometers or 100 kilograms to 125 kilometers."

The former USS Croatan [center image below] was used as a mobile range facility for launching sounding rockets like the Nike-Apache [image on the left].

Arcas
"The name was an acronym for "All-purpose Rocket for Collecting Atmospheric Soundings."1 It was intentional that the first three letters, "A-R-C," also were the initials of the Atlantic Research Corporation.2 An inexpensive vehicle designed specifically for meteorological research, Arcas could carry a five-kilogram payload to an altitude of 64 kilometers.3 Later versions were the Boosted Arcas, Boosted Arcas II, and Super Arcas, all of which NASA used."

Aries
"NASA in 1974 was working with the Naval Research Laboratory, Sandia Laboratories, and West Germany to develop a new sounding rocket, the Aries, using surplus second stages from the Department of Defense Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles. The rocket, which had flown three test flights by December 1974, would lift larger payloads for longer flight times than other rockets-in astronomy, physics, and space processing research projects."

"The Aries [had a] greater volume for carrying [experimental] instruments than provided by the Aerobee 350 sounding rocket and [carried] 180- to 900-kilogram scientific payloads to altitudes that would permit 11 to 7 minutes viewing time above 91 440 meters, appreciably longer than the viewing time of the Aerobee 350 and the Black Brant VC."

"The first test flights had carried 817 kilograms to 270.7 and 299 kilometers."

Aries gave "11 to 8 minutes in weightless conditions for materials-processing-experiment payloads of 45 to 454 kilograms."

Asps
In addition to land-based surface launches of sounding rockets for X-ray detection, occasionally ocean surface ships served as stable platforms. The USS Point Defiance (LSD-31) is one of the first rocket-launching surface ships to support the 1958 IGY Solar Eclipse Expedition to the Danger Island region of the South Pacific. Launchers on deck fired eight Nike-Asp sounding rockets. Each rocket carried an X-ray detector to record X-ray emission from the Sun during the solar eclipse on October 12, 1958.

Astrobees
"The uprated Aerobee 150 was named "Astrobee.""

An "Astrobee 1500 [such as imaged on the right had] its first flight test, 21 October 1964."

The Astrobee 1500 had a nominal altitude of 2200 km.

Black brants
"The Black Brant series of sounding rockets was developed by Bristol Aerospace Ltd. of Canada with the Canadian government. The first rocket was launched in 1939. By the end of 1974 close to 300 Black Brants had been launched and vehicles were in inventories of research agencies in Canada, Europe, and the United States, including the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and NASA."

"The Canadian government kept the name with the addition of numbers (I through VI by 1974) for different members of the series-rather than giving a code name to each version-to emphasize that they were sounding rockets rather than weapons."

"The Black Brant IVA used a modified upper stage and a more powerful engine than previous models, to boost it to 900 kilometers. The Black Brant V series consisted of three 43-centimeter-diameter sounding rockets with all components interchangeable."

"The Black Brant VA (or "BBVA") used stabilizer components with the BBII's engine and carried 136-kilogram payloads to 160 kilometers, to fill a need for that altitude range. The BBVB, using an engine giving rocket performance double that of the BBII, was designed to meet requirements for scientific investigations above 320-kilometer altitude."

"The Black Brant VC [image at top left] was used by NASA to support the 1973-1974 Skylab Orbital Workshop missions by evaluating and calibrating Workshop instruments. The three-fin solid-fueled Black Brant VB was converted to a four-fin model suitable for launching from White Sands Missile Range and permitting recovery of the rocket payloads. The changes decreased performance somewhat but increased stability and allowed greater variations in payload length and weight on the VC. NASA launched the Black Brant VC on two flights during each of the three manned missions to the Skylab Workshop."

"In 1967, Bristol of Canada received a U.S. Army development contract for a pair of small meteorological sounding rockets. The larger one became the Black Brant VI [image second down on the left], while the smaller one was the Black Brant VII. The U.S. Army nomenclature for the BB VI was Weather Rocket, RDT&E, XM75. The BB VI's solid-propellant motor had a high initial thrust which gradually dropped until burnout. The four tail fins were canted to induce a stabilizing spin. At an apogee of about 75 km (47 miles), the nose cone was ejected, and a parachute opened under which the meteorological instrument package descended to the ground."

"The Black Brant 9 rocket took about four minutes to lift the experiment to an altitude of 131 miles. Less than a minute later it was released from its cover and started inflating on schedule at 124 miles up. The inflation of the shield took less than 90 seconds."

Goddard rockets
Robert H. Goddard first "shot a scientific payload (barometer and camera) in a rocket flight (1929, Auburn, Massachusetts)".

The image on the left is from 8 March 1926 and shows Robert H. Goddard and a liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket.

Hawks
"NASA was developing a low-cost sounding rocket in 1974-1975 using surplus motors from the Army's Hawk antiaircraft missiles. The research rocket inherited the Army's name, an acronym for "Homing All the Way Killer," although the new uses would be far removed from the purposes of the weapon system."

"To be flown as a single-stage Hawk or in two-stage combination as the Nike-Hawk, for a variety of research projects, the 35.6-centimeter-diameter rocket would provide a large volume for payloads. Both stages of the Nike-Hawk would use surplus Army equipment (see also Nike). Development testing was proceeding under Wallops Flight Center management. By December 1974, two flight tests of the single-stage Hawk sounding rocket had been launched, the first one lifting off successfully 29 May 1974. The first flight test of the Nike-Hawk was planned for mid-1975."

"The single-stage Hawk could carry a 45-kilogram payload to an 80-kilometer altitude or 90 kilograms to 57 kilometers. Engineers were working toward a performance capability of 45 kilograms to 210 kilometers or 90 kilograms to 160 kilometers for the Nike-Hawk."

Jasons
"The name of a series of sounding rockets, "Argo" was from the name of Jason's ship in the ancient Greek myth of Jason's travels in search of the Golden Fleece. The first sounding rocket in this series, developed by the Aerolab Company (later a division of Atlantic Research Corporation), was called "Jason.""

Javelins
"Argo D-4 (Javelin) was designed to carry 40- to 70-kilogram payloads to 800- to 11OO-kilometer altitudes."

Journeymans
"Argo D-8 (Journeyman) could carry 20- to 70-kilogram payloads to 1500- to 2100-kilometer altitudes."

Skylark
In the southern hemisphere at Woomera, South Australia, another X-ray observing location uses a famous and probably the most successful sounding rocket, the Skylark, to place X-ray detectors at suborbital altitudes. "[T]he first X-ray surveys of the sky in the Southern Hemisphere" are accomplished by Skylark launches.

V 2s
Observatories on the Earth's surface do not seem like a useful place to conduct X-ray astronomy observations in view of the inability of X-rays to reach even the peaks of the highest mountains. From the earliest speculations about detecting X-rays above the Earth's atmosphere, the need to use an appropriate probe suggested a high altitude sounding rocket. The ending of World War II presented an opportunity to use a ballistic missile for just such a purpose. The White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico, at the time an army base, is the first location on land to test the concept. The image at the right shows the V-2 launch complex prior to the launch of V-2 number 6.

The first successful attempt to detect X-rays above the Earth's surface occurred at White Sands Proving Grounds on August 5, 1948, by lofting an X-ray detector with a V-2 rocket.

As with visual or optical astronomy observatories, there is a tendency to place them away from population centers. The photograph at right of the January 18, 1951, V-2 launch indicates one reason for doing so with X-ray observing. Rockets lofted upwards tend to return.

The beginning of the search for X-ray sources above the Earth's atmosphere is August 5, 1948, at 12:07 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). As part of Project Hermes a US Army (formerly German) V-2 rocket number 43 is launched from White Sands Proving Grounds, launch complex (LC) 33, to an altitude of 166 km. This is "the first detection of solar X-rays." After detecting X-ray photons from the Sun in the course of the rocket flight, T.R. Burnight wrote, “The sun is assumed to be the source of this radiation although radiation of wave-length shorter than 4 angstroms would not be expected from theoretical estimates of black body radiation from the solar corona.”

Hypotheses

 * 1) Being repelled by the Earth is a lofting technology.