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. For certain purposes Sounding Rockets may be flown to altitudes as high as 3,000 kilometers to allow observing times of around 40 minutes to provide geophysical observations of the magnetosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere and mesosphere. Sounding rockets have been used for the examination of atmospheric nuclear tests by revealing the passage of the shock wave through the atmosphere. In more recent times Sounding Rockets have been used for other nuclear weapons research. 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 Dragon is a two-stage French solid propellant sounding rocket used for high altitude research between 1962 and 1973. It belonged thereby to a family of solid-propellant rockets derived from the Bélier, including the Centaure, the Dauphin and the Éridan.
Centaure was a two-stage French sounding rocket consisting of a Venus first stage and a Belier second stage. It belongs to a family of solid-propellant rockets consisting of the Belier, Centaure, Dragon, Dauphin, and Eridan.
Salto di Quirra is a restricted weapons testing range and rocket launch site near Perdasdefogu on the island of Sardinia. It is the largest military range in Italy, composed of 12,000 hectares of land owned by the Italian Ministry of Defence and one of the largest in operation within the European Union. Birth defects and cancer in the area have been blamed on weaponry used at the site.
The Nike Apache, also known as Argo B-13, was a two-stage sounding rocket developed by Aerolab, later Atlantic Research, for use by the United States Air Force and NASA. It became the standard NASA sounding rocket and was launched over 600 times between 1961 and 1978.
The Flight Test Range (FTR) at Sonmiani Beach is a rocket launch site in Balochistan, approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
The Judi-Dart is a United States solid fueled sounding rocket. It was manufactured by Rocket Power Inc. It belonged to the Loki rocket family. The Judi-Dart was launched 89 times between 1964 and 1970. The Judi-Dart has a length of 2.70 metres, a diameter of 0.08 metres, a maximum flight altitude of 65 kilometres and a launch thrust of 9000 newtons.
The Nike-Cajun was a two-stage sounding rocket built by combining a Nike base stage with a Cajun upper stage. The Nike-Cajun was known as a CAN for Cajun And Nike. The Cajun was developed from the Deacon rocket. It retained the external size, shape and configuration of the Deacon but had 36 percent greater impulse than the Deacon due to improved propellant. It was launched 714 times between 1956 and 1976 and was the most frequently used sounding rocket of the western world. The Nike Cajun had a launch weight of 698 kg (1538 lb), a payload of 23 kg (51 lb), a launch thrust of 246 kN (55,300 lbf) and a maximum altitude of 120 km (394,000 ft). It had a diameter of 42 cm and a length of 7.70 m. The maximum speed of the Nike-Cajun was 6,760 km/h.
Badr-1 was the first artificial and the first digital communications satellite launched by Pakistan's national space authority — the SUPARCO — in 1990. The Badr-1 was Pakistan's first indigenously developed and manufactured digital communications and an experimental artificial satellite which was launched into low Earth orbit by Pakistan on 16 July 1990, through a Chinese carrier rocket. The launch ushered new military, technological, and scientific developments in Pakistan and also provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Originally planned to be launched from the United States in 1986, the Challenger disaster further delayed the launch of the satellite which changed the plan. After the People's Republic of China offered Pakistan to use its facility, the Badr-1 was finally launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in 1990 on Long March 2E. Badr-1 travelled at 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h), taking 96.3 minutes to complete an orbit, and emitted radio signals at the 145 to 435 MHz bands which were operated by Pakistan Amateur Radio Society (PARS). The Badr-1 successfully completed its designed life, and a new satellite was proposed to be developed.
Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) is an Indian rocket launching site established on 21 November 1963. Operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), it is located in Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, which is near the southwestern tip of mainland India, very close to Earth's magnetic equator. It is currently used by ISRO for launching sounding rockets.
The Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, commonly referred to as SUPARCO, is the national space agency of Pakistan.
The Chronology of Pakistan's rocket tests entails the series of sounding rocket launches conducted by the Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) aimed at advancing Pakistan's space program. These launches were instrumental in developing high-altitude rockets, fostering scientific exploration, and providing invaluable data for research in physics and atmospheric sciences.
The Badr-B was the second spacecraft and the first Earth observation satellite launched into Sun-synchronous orbit on 10 December 2001 at 09:15 by SUPARCO — Pakistan's national space agency. Badr-B was a microsatellite, weighing approximately 70 kg, and contained a computerized system to conduct studies on gravity gradients. Badr-B was a research satellite to explore the upper atmosphere and the near space, carrying a large array of instruments for geophysical research.
This is a list of spaceflight related events which occurred in 1956.
Dr. Salim Mehmud, also known as Salim Mehmood, is a Pakistani rocket scientist and a nuclear engineer. Mehmud worked in the Apollo Program for NASA. He is the former chairman of Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO). He has served as chief scientist at the Defence Science and Technology Organization. Currently, he is the chief Scientific and Technological Advisor at the Ministry of Communications of Pakistan.
Dr. Tariq Mustafa is a Pakistani mechanical engineer with a first class honors degree from London University specializing in nuclear and space technology. He led the establishment of Pakistan's Space and Rocket Technology Program and subsequently, served in high ranking positions in the Government of Pakistan as Federal Secretary of the Ministries of Defense Production, Science and Technology, Public Sector Industry, Petroleum and Natural Resources and Privatization. He is the founder and current Chairperson of Pakistan's National Paralympics Committee (PNPC), President of the South Asian Paralympics Committee and the Vice President of the Asian Paralympic Committee. His lifelong interests are reason, revelation and the future of humanity. He has been active in discourse about science and religion and is the author of The Case for God - Based on Reason and Evidence, not Groundless Faith. In September 2015, he has been appointed as a member of the Governing Council of the Institute for Religion in the Age of Science (IRAS).
The Cajun was an American sounding rocket developed during the 1950s. It was extensively used for scientific experiments by NASA and the United States military between 1956 and 1976.
The Nike Smoke was a sounding rocket, part of a research project on the behavior of the horizontal winds in the upper atmosphere, developed by NASA in the 1960s based on the Nike booster. The goal was to obtain more accurate data on the behavior of these winds in order to guide the design of new vehicles particularly the Saturn family of vehicles. Nike Smoke used the release of titanium tetrachloride at altitude to create a smoke trail at altitude. The release created a white smoke trail which when photographed from two cameras situated 10–12 miles from the launch site and 90 degrees apart. Comparison of the photographs allowed winds aloft to be calculated in both direction and velocity.
The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules missiles as part of Project Nike.
