The de Havilland Propellers Blue Streak was a British Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), and later the first stage of the Europa satellite launch vehicle. Blue Streak was cancelled without entering full production.
A missile is an airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight aided usually by a propellant, jet engine or rocket motor.
The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), before finally losing its identity in mergers with other institutions.
The Henschel Hs 293 was a World War II German radio-guided glide bomb. It is the first operational anti-shipping missile, first used unsuccessfully on 25 August 1943 and then with increasing success over the next year, damaging or sinking at least 25 ships. Allied efforts to jam the radio control link were increasingly successful despite German efforts to counter them. The weapon remained in use through 1944 when it was also used as an air-to-ground weapon to attack bridges to prevent the Allied breakout after D-Day, but proved almost useless in this role.
A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term launch pad can be used to describe just the central launch platform, or the entire complex. The entire complex will include a launch mount or launch platform to physically support the vehicle, a service structure with umbilicals, and the infrastructure required to provide propellants, cryogenic fluids, electrical power, communications, telemetry, rocket assembly, payload processing, storage facilities for propellants and gases, equipment, access roads, and drainage.
Rocketdyne is an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, in southern California.
The Fairey Aviation Company Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer of the first half of the 20th century based in Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Cheshire that designed important military aircraft, including the Fairey III family, the Swordfish, Firefly, and Gannet. It had a strong presence in the supply of naval aircraft, and also built bombers for the RAF.
The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States, on the banks of the Pearl River at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. As of 2012, it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. There are over 50 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies using SSC for their rocket testing facilities.
RAF Spadeadam is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Cumbria, England, close to the border with Northumberland. It is the home of the 9,000 acre (36 km2) electronic warfare (EW) tactics range, making it the largest RAF base in the United Kingdom. Its primary use is for EW training to the RAF and NATO allies. The site and course of Hadrian's Wall runs a few miles south of the range.
Fireflash was the United Kingdom's first air-to-air guided missile to see service with the Royal Air Force. Constructed by Fairey Aviation, the missile utilised radar beam riding guidance. Fireflash had relatively limited performance and required the launching aircraft to approach the target from a limited angle astern.
Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp, Inc., In 2013, Aerojet was merged by GenCorp with the former Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to form Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Avio S.p.A. is an Italian company operating in the aerospace sector with its head office in Colleferro near Rome, Italy. Founded in 1908, it is present in Italy and abroad with different commercial offices and 10 production sites. Avio operates in:
RAF Westcott is a former Royal Air Force station located near Westcott in Buckinghamshire, England. The site fully opened in September 1942 and was the base of No.11 Operational Training Unit (OTU) flying the Vickers Wellington medium bomber until the RAF moved out in August 1945, the station was officially closed on 3 April 1946.
A rocket engine test facility is a location where rocket engines may be tested on the ground, under controlled conditions. A ground test program is generally required before the engine is certified for flight. Ground testing is very inexpensive in comparison to the cost of risking an entire mission or the lives of a flight crew.
Walter J H "Papa" Riedel was a German engineer who was the head of the Design Office of the Army Research Centre Peenemünde and the chief designer of the A4 (V-2) ballistic rocket. The crater Riedel on the Moon was co-named for him and the German rocket pioneer Klaus Riedel.
The Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, also known as Building 4572 and the Static Test Stand, is a rocket testing facility of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Built in 1957, it was the site where the first single-stage rockets with multiple engines were tested. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985 for its role in the development of the United States space program.
The Redstone Test Stand or Interim Test Stand was used to develop and test fire the Redstone missile, Jupiter-C sounding rocket, Juno I launch vehicle and Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle. It was declared an Alabama Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1979 and a National Historic Landmark in 1985. It is located at NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama on the Redstone Arsenal, designated Building 4665. The Redstone missile was the first missile to detonate a nuclear weapon. Jupiter-C launched to test components for the Jupiter missile. Juno I put the first American satellite Explorer 1 into orbit. Mercury Redstone carried the first American astronaut Alan Shepard into space. The Redstone earned the name "Old Reliable" because of this facility and the improvements it made possible.
Bristol Aerojet (BAJ) was a joint venture between the Bristol Aeroplane Company of the United Kingdom and Aerojet General of the US begun in 1959 using the existing factory at Banwell near Weston super Mare, England.
The R.A.E. Vickers Transonic Research Rocket was developed from the Miles M.52, a British research supersonic aircraft a project which was undertaken in top secrecy between 1942 and 1945 to a Ministry of Supply specification E.24/43. The project was cancelled because the Government of the day was persuaded that with the accumulation of data it was felt that the E.24/43 aircraft was unlikely to reach sonic speed. Wind tunnel model tests apparently indicated serious loss of longitudinal stability at high subsonic speed as was then characteristic of existing aircraft. The decision was reached to acquire preliminary experience of flight under transonic conditions using rocket-driven pilotless scale models. The Ministry of Supply (MOS) formed the Guided Projectile Establishment under W. P. Cooke at Westcott, Buckinghamshire, and the Rocket Propulsion Group under A. D. Baxter at RAE, Farnborough. Work commenced in applying German technology, with the Halstead Experimental Centre of the MOS monitoring commercial exploitation.
The Gorgon III – given the military designations KA3N, KU3N, CTV-N-6 and RTV-N-4 – was a rocket-powered air-to-air missile developed by the United States Navy near the end of World War II. With the end of the war, the program was changed to that of a research vehicle for missile control systems; both single and twin-rocket-powered versions were built and tested.
