The NASA Sounding Rocket Program (NSRP) is a NASA run program of sounding rockets which has been operating since 1959. [1] [2] The missions carried out by this program are primarily used for scientific research, particularly low gravity and material based research. [3] NASA's sounding rocket program is commonly used by colleges and universities for upper atmosphere research. [4]
In 1965, NASA's cost of a sounding rocket system was $5,000 to $150,000, using combinations of stage motors from the Aerobee, Hercules M5E1 (developed for the Nike Ajax), and Thiokol Apache. [5]
The program was consolidated at the Wallops Flight Facility in the 1980s and uses extra military solid rocket motors. Rockets are frequently launched from fixed facilities at Wallops, the Navy's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska, Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, Pacific Missile Range Facility in Barking Sands, Hawaii, and Andøya Rocket Range, Norway. The rockets are categorized as "Significant Military Equipment" for ITAR. [1]
Rockets in use include single-stage or combinations of: [1]
Some combinations of stages allow payloads of up to 1550 pounds. [1]
Mission Name | Date | Launch Vehicle | Status |
---|---|---|---|
MUMP 9 | 15 January 1971, 1955 EST | Nike-Tomahawk | Success- University of Michigan's Space Physics Research Laboratory; night-launched 163lb thermosphere probe/cryogenic densitometer/molecular fluorescence densitometer/omegatron payload reached 297.1 km [6] |
MUMP 10 | 15 January 1971, 1530 EST | Nike-Tomahawk | Success- University of Michigan's Space Physics Research Laboratory; day-launched 169lb payload added two Langmuir probes, reached 289.6 km [6] |
PolarNOx | 27 January 2017 | Black Brant IX | Success [7] |
DEUCE | 30 October 2017 | Black Brant IX | Failure - No data recovered but payload was recovered [8] |
USIP | 25 March 2018 | Terrier Malemute | Success [9] |
ASPIRE | 30 March - 7 September 2018 | Black Brant IX | Success [10] |
The PolarNOx mission was a set of experimental launches used to measure the nitric oxide present in the upper atmosphere that is produced by auroras. [11]
The DEUCE (Dual-channel Extreme Ultraviolet Continuum Experiment) mission was planned to obtain scientific data about the IGM. This failed however due to problems with the attitude control system. [12]
On 11 July 2022 [13] a Black Brant IX rocket from Arnhem Space Centre launched the fourth DEUCE ultraviolet astronomy mission following flights in 2017, 2018, and 2020 for NASA (CU Boulder). The suborbital flight had apogee of 162 mi (261 km) and was successful.
The ASPIRE mission (Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment) was an experiment which tested a Mars mission parachute design. The mission consisted of three tests using the Black Brant IX sounding rocket, with the third and final test taking place on Sept. 7, 2018. [14]
The Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment in April 2019 caught many Norwegians by surprise by triggering an unusual form of the Aurora Borealis.
A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to launch instruments from 48 to 145 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 121 km. Certain sounding rockets have an apogee between 1,000 and 1,500 km, such as the Black Brant X and XII, which is the maximum apogee of their class. Sounding rockets often use military surplus rocket motors. NASA routinely flies the Terrier Mk 70 boosted Improved Orion, lifting 270–450-kg (600–1,000-pound) payloads into the exoatmospheric region between 97 and 201 km.
The Rogers Commission Report was written by a Presidential Commission charged with investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster during its 10th mission, STS-51-L. The report, released and submitted to President Ronald Reagan on June 9, 1986, both determined the cause of the disaster that took place 73 seconds after liftoff, and urged NASA to improve and install new safety features on the shuttles and in its organizational handling of future missions.
Robert Laurel Crippen is an American retired naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and retired astronaut. He traveled into space four times: as pilot of STS-1 in April 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission; and as commander of STS-7 in June 1983, STS-41-C in April 1984, and STS-41-G in October 1984. He was also a part of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test (SMEAT), ASTP support crew member, and the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) for the Space Shuttle.
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The Black Brant is a family of Canadian-designed sounding rockets originally built by Bristol Aerospace, since absorbed by Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Over 800 Black Brants of various versions have been launched since they were first produced in 1961, and the type remains one of the most popular sounding rockets. They have been repeatedly used by the Canadian Space Agency and NASA.
The Churchill Rocket Research Range is a former rocket launch site located 23 kilometres (14 mi) outside Churchill, Manitoba. The facility was used by Canada and the United States beginning in 1954 for sub-orbital launches of sounding rockets to study the upper atmosphere. The site was scientifically beneficial due to lying in the center of a zone containing high aurora activity. Over 3,500 sub-orbital flights were launched from the site.
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Little Joe II was an American rocket used from 1963 to 1966 for five uncrewed tests of the Apollo spacecraft launch escape system (LES), and to verify the performance of the command module parachute recovery system in abort mode. It was named after a similar rocket designed for the same function in Project Mercury. Launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, it was the smallest of four launch rockets used in the Apollo program.
Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately 100 miles (160 km) north-northeast of Norfolk. The facility is operated by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and primarily serves to support science and exploration missions for NASA and other Federal agencies. WFF includes an extensively instrumented range to support launches of more than a dozen types of sounding rockets; small expendable suborbital and orbital rockets; high-altitude balloon flights carrying scientific instruments for atmospheric and astronomical research; and, using its Research Airport, flight tests of aeronautical research aircraft, including unmanned aerial vehicles.
Little Joe was a solid-fueled booster rocket used by NASA for eight launches from 1959 to 1960 from Wallops Island, Virginia to test the launch escape system and heat shield for Project Mercury capsules, as well as the name given to the test program using the booster. The first rocket designed solely for crewed spacecraft qualifications, Little Joe was also one of the pioneer operational launch vehicles using the rocket cluster principle.
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