Oracle is the name of a model rocket with built-in digital camera, manufactured by Estes Industries, for aerial photography. In contrast to the camera rocket Astrocam, the Oracle allows the making of a complete film of a rocket flight. The Oracle is best flown with a D12 engine (see Estes number coding), but can be flown with C11 engines.
A model rocket is a small rocket designed to reach low altitudes and be recovered by a variety of means.
A camera is an optical instrument to capture still images or to record moving images, which are stored in a physical medium such as in a digital system or on photographic film. A camera consists of a lens which focuses light from the scene, and a camera body which holds the image capture mechanism.
Estes Industries is a model rocket company that was started in Denver, Colorado, USA. The company was the first to mass-produce model rocket engines with consistent and reliable performance.
During launch, the camera films downward; showing the launch pad and engine exhaust during ascent. The rocket's nose cone may be attached to the parachute in two ways; there are attachments on both ends of the nose cone. Attaching the parachute to the bottom films the parachute during descent. Attaching the parachute to the top films the approach of the ground during descent.
The nose-cone attaches to a PC via USB. The resulting AVI file contains approximately 30 (between 30 and 35) seconds of uncompressed video at 9 frame/s at a resolution of 320 pixels wide by 240 pixels high (320x240). The data rate is 2047 kbit/s. The camera holds only one video at a time.
USB is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables and connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply between computers, peripheral devices and other computers. Released in 1996, the USB standard is currently maintained by the USB Implementers Forum. There have been three generations of USB specifications: USB 1.x, USB 2.0 and USB 3.x; the fourth called USB4 is scheduled to be published in the middle of 2019.
Audio Video Interleave, known by its initials AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows software. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback. Like the DVD video format, AVI files support multiple streaming audio and video, although these features are seldom used. Most AVI files also use the file format extensions developed by the Matrox OpenDML group in February 1996. These files are supported by Microsoft, and are unofficially called "AVI 2.0".
Uncompressed video is digital video that either has never been compressed or was generated by decompressing previously compressed digital video. It is commonly used by video cameras, video monitors, video recording devices, and in video processors that perform functions such as image resizing, image rotation, deinterlacing, and text and graphics overlay. It is conveyed over various types of baseband digital video interfaces, such as HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and SDI. Standards also exist for carriage of uncompressed video over computer networks.
Example of an oracle rocket flight on YouTube Estes Oracle Flight
YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.
![]() | This rocketry article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
AS-203 was an unmanned flight of the Saturn IB rocket on July 5, 1966. It carried no command and service module, as its purpose was to verify the design of the S-IVB rocket stage restart capability that would later be used in the Apollo program to boost astronauts from Earth orbit to a trajectory towards the Moon. It successfully achieved its objectives, but the stage was inadvertently destroyed after four orbits.
SA-5 was the first launch of the Block II Saturn I rocket and was part of the Apollo program. In 1963, president John Kennedy identified this launch as the one which would place US lift capability ahead of the Soviets, after being behind for more than six years since Sputnik.
The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth. The expendable (single-use) spacecraft consisted of a combined command and service module (CSM) and a lunar module (LM). Two additional components complemented the spacecraft stack for space vehicle assembly: a spacecraft–LM adapter (SLA) designed to shield the LM from the aerodynamic stress of launch and to connect the CSM to the Saturn launch vehicle; and a launch escape system (LES) to carry the crew in the command module safely away from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch emergency.
The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) were the first solid-propellant rocket to be used for primary propulsion on a vehicle used for human spaceflight and provided the majority of the Space Shuttle's thrust during the first two minutes of flight. After burnout, they were jettisoned and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean where they were recovered, examined, refurbished, and reused.
The Aerojet General X-8 was an unguided, spin-stabilized sounding rocket designed to launch a 150 lb (68 kg) payload to 200,000 feet (61.0 km). The X-8 was a version of the prolific Aerobee rocket family.
The Astrocam 110 is a model rocket with a built-in camera for taking aerial photographs.
Aries is an American sounding rocket and target rocket, developed by Space Vector Corporation from retired LGM-30 Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) stages for use by the United States Air Force and NASA. Taken over by Orbital Sciences Corporation, Aries, as the Target Test Vehicle, remains in use.
The RTV-A-2 Hiroc was the United States' first attempt at an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The project was initially under the name MX-774, however the project was canceled in 1947, and leftover funds were used to build and launch three missiles, which were renamed to RTV-A-2 Hiroc. The design included several innovations; the gimballed engine provided guidance control, the internal gas pressure was used to support the airframe and the nose cap was separable. All of these concepts were later used on the Atlas missile.
New Shepard is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL), suborbital crewed rocket that is being developed by Blue Origin as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. Blue Origin is owned and led by Amazon.com founder and businessman Jeff Bezos and aerospace engineer Rob Meyerson. NASA Silver Snoopy Award winner Robert Smith is the company's chief executive officer.
Lakshya is an Indian remotely piloted high speed target drone system developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of DRDO. A variant Lakshya-1 is used to perform discreet aerial reconnaissance of battlefield and target acquisition.
ZALA 421-12 is a micro Miniature UAV developed and produced by the Izhevsk-based company ZALA Aero. It is a small, portable and reliable UAV platform. ZALA 421-12 is designed for front-line reconnaissance, overground and oversea surveillance. It takes 3 minutes to prepare ZALA for launching. The UAV is operated in the autonomous or semi-autonomous mode.
The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA's Project Mercury, was the first American manned space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–61; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks later, the second American in space. The fourth subsequent Mercury human spaceflights used the more powerful Atlas booster to enter low Earth orbit.
The SpaceX reusable launch system development program is a privately funded program to develop a set of new technologies for an orbital launch system that may be reused many times in a manner similar to the reusability of aircraft. The company SpaceX is developing the technologies over a number of years to facilitate full and rapid reusability of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site in minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal is that both stages of their orbital launch vehicle will be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return.
Mars atmospheric entry is the entry into the atmosphere of Mars. High velocity entry into Martian air creates a CO2-N2 plasma, as opposed to O2-N2 for Earth air. Mars entry is affected by the radiative effects of hot CO2 gas and Martian dust suspended in the air. Flight regimes for entry, descent, and landing systems include aerocapture, hypersonic, supersonic, and subsonic.
Dragon 2 is a class of reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, conceived as the successor to the Dragon cargo spacecraft. The spacecraft are designed for launches atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket and a splashdown return. In comparison to its predecessor, it has larger windows, new flight computers and avionics, redesigned solar arrays, and a modified outer mold line.
The Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) is an experimental test vehicle for the Indian Space Research Organisation's future ISRO orbital vehicle called Gaganyaan. It was launched successfully on 18 December 2014 from the Second Launch Pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, by a GSLV Mk III designated by ISRO as the LVM 3X CARE mission.
A Cricketsonde (Cold Rocket Instrument Carrying Kit sonde) was a CO2 propelled, low-altitude meteorological rocket designed in the early 1960s by Texaco Inc. and the Friez Instrument Division of Bendix Corporation. It was used by various government and academic agencies until at least the late 1960s. The rocket carried what was essentially a radiosonde payload and was capable of reaching over 3000 feet (914 meters), where it then ejected a parachute and sent telemetry about temperature, humidity and barometric pressure during descent. A ground station with a manually tracked antenna received the signal where the data was processed and recorded.
Zero 2 Infinity is a private Spanish company developing high-altitude balloons to provide access to near space and low Earth orbit using a balloon-borne pod and a balloon-borne launcher.