Aerobee


The Aerobee rocket family was one of the outstanding achievements of early American rocketry. It not only was a primary sounding rocket of the 1940s and 1950s; Aerobees were launched into the mid-1980s with the last flight in 1985. The early RTV-N-10 Aerobee was a 6.14m unguided sounding rocket used for high atmospheric and cosmic radiation research in the United States in the 1940s.Newell, Homer E. Jr., "Sounding Rockets," McGraw-Hill New York, 1959, p 61 The Aerojet designation for the first Aerobees was XASR-1 which was also the designation of its engine. The name was a contraction of Aerojet and Bumblebee, the names of the prime contractor and manufacturer of the engine and Bumblebee a Navy guided missile program.Newell, p 57Kennedy, Gregory P, "The Rockets and Missiles of White Sands Proving Ground 1945-1958," Schiffer Military History, Atglen, PA, 2009, p 107 As with its progenitor WAC Corporal the Aerobee required a large launch tower for initial guidance. The Aerobee was the first rocket fired by the US Navy at White Sands.Newell, p 66 Aerobee was boosted by a 2.5KS-18000 solid rocket. Aerobee was initially powered by the XASR-1 a version of the 21AL-2600 engine of the Nike Ajax.Sutton, George P, "History of Liquid Propellent Rocket Engines," American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Reston Virginia, 2005, p 371-372 That engine was replaced by developed versions such as the AJ10-25 and AJ10-34.Newell, p 70 The Aerobee was the subject of the first comprehensive missile range safety program.Newell, p 59 The US Navy designation was RTV-N-8. The US Air Force also operated Aerobees under program MX-1011 as X-8. The USAF system of fuel tank pressurization with helium instead of compressed air was adapted by the USN and the Navy Aerobee was redesignated RTV-N-10.
Research utilizing V-2 rockets after World War II produced valuable results concerning the nature of cosmic rays, the solar spectrum, and the distribution of atmospheric ozone. The limited supply and the expense of assembling and firing the V-2 rockets led to the development of a low cost sounding rocket to be utilized for scientific research.Mattson, Wayne O., and Tagg, Martyn D., "We Develop Missiles not Air!," Legacy Resource Management Program, Air Combat Command USAF, Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, June 1995, p 45 That rocket, the Aerobee, was developed under the joint guidance of James Van Allen at the Applied Physics Laboratory and Rolf Sabersky at the Aerojet Corporation and was supported by the Navy Bureau of Ordnance and the Naval Office of Research and Inventions. The Aerobee drastically reduced the cost of a single research mission. Development of the Aerobee at Aerojet was the responsibility of Kenneth Mundt, Robert Young, Chan Ross, Bernie Bierman and A.L. Antonio.Newell, p 57 The cost of lofting a pound of scientific payload to altitude was significantly lower than that of any competitor.DeVorkin, David H., "Science With A Vengance," Smithsonian Institution, /Springer-Verlag New York, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1992/1993, p 171 By the early 1950s Aerobee was the sounding rocket of choice being flown by the Navy Research Laboratory, USAF, and Army Signal Corps.DeVorkin, p 174Miller, Jay, "The X-Planes X-1 to X-31," Aerofax, Arlington, Texas, 1988, p 82 Over the decades of development Aerobees were flown with many related engines including the XASR-1, 45AL-2600, AJ10-24, AJ10-25, AJ10-27, AJ10-34, AJ11-6, and AJ60-92. Later versions of the AJ10 and AJ-11 engines produced 4,000 lbs. thrust.Newell, p 70 Boosters included surplus Nike M5E1 boosters and VKM-17 and VKM-20s as we'll as the original 2.5KS-18000. The variety of research done with the Aerobee family included photography, biomedical research, biology, energetic particles, fields, ionospheric physics, meteorology, radio astronomy, solar physics, aeronomy, spectrometry, signals intelligence research, infrared studies, magnetometry, ultraviolet research, astronomy, mass spectrometry, as well as many other fields such as aerodynamic research and missile technology development.Corliss, William R., "NASA SP-4401, NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958-1968," Scientific and Technical Information Office NASA, Washington D.C., 1971, p 57Newell, p 64-69, 91-920Miller, p 82
The prime contractor for Aerobee was Aerojet General. The company began work in 1946 and test fired the first complete Aerobee from the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico on November 24, 1947. It reached an altitude of Newell, p 66.
Forty of the original XASR-1 Aerobees were fired. Aerobee then was developed into an extensive family of sounding rockets. Development of Aerobee was continuous resulting in many slight changes in engine, length, fuel capacity, equipment and capacity.
The first major derivative version was the Aerobee-Hi. It featured an increase in length, fuel capacity and improved engineering design. There were two versions of the Aerobee-Hi. The Air Force Aerobee Hi, and the slightly longer Navy Aerobee-Hi. Engine development continued with the AJ11-6, AJ11-18, AJ11-20, AJ11-21, and AGVL0113C/F/H/I of the Aerobee-Hi.Towndsen, John w., and Slavin, Robert M., "Aerobee-Hi Development Program," American Rocket Society, New York, March 1957 p 264-265 The Aerobe-Hi was boosted by the 2.5 KS-18000 booster.Newell, p 75 The Navy Aerobee-Hi was considerably different than the Air Force Aerobee-Hi. It used the fuel pressure regulator from the Nike Ajax, a delayed start function and a pressure sealed tail cone to allow better measurement of the external upper atmosphere.Newell, p 79-80 Aerobee-Hi and its later derivative the Aerobee 150 flights were largely but not exclusively from White Sands, Holloman AFB, Fort Churchill, Manitoba, and Wallops Island, Virginia
Following the creation of NASA development of Aerobees became largely guided by NASA. Exceptions developed for the armed services were the Aerobee 170, aka Nike-Aerobee, which had a Nike M5E1 booster and a Aerobee 150, and the Aerobee 300 which used a 2.5KS-18000 booster, with a AJ11 powered sustainer and a second stage with a Sparrow missile motor. The Aerobee 300 was also known as the Sparrowbee. There were versions of Aerobee-Hi such as the Aerobee 150 and 150A in which case the difference was in the number of fins the 150 having three and the 150A four. The Aerobe 100 was essentially shortened Aerobee 150 with an AJ11 engine. By far the largest was the Aerobee 350 was composed of four clustered Aerobee 150s boosted by a Nike M5E1.Corliss, p 79 Though they bore the Aerobee appellation the Aerobee 75 and proposed Aerobee 90 were not actually related to the others in that they were solid propellant rockets with the 75 having a HAWK motor, the 90 was a 75 with a Sparrow second stage.

Launches

The Aerobee rocket was usually composed of a solid-fuel booster and a nitric acid/aniline sustainer. The Aerobee was the first American made rocket to pass the Karmen line on . Instrumentation usually provided constant telemetry and was recovered by parachute. The initial Aerobee could take a 68 kg payload to an altitude of 130 km.
Aerobees were usually launched from 53 m tall launch towers to provide the necessary stability until the rockets gained enough speed for their fins to be effective in controlling attitude. Launch towers were adjustable in inclination and azimuth to compensate for wind.Newell, p 59 Launch towers were built at the White Sands Missile Range; Holloman AFB; Churchill Rocket Research Range; Wallops Flight Facility; Eglin AFB, Santa Rosa Island, Florida; and Woomera, South Australia. Aerobees were also launched from Centro de Lancamento da Barreira do Inferno, Natal, Rio Grande N, Brazil; Kauai Test Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai; Nouadhibou, Dakhlet Nouadhibou, Mauritania; Vandenberg AFB, California; Walker's Cay, Bahamas; and aboard the research vessel USS Norton Sound. Two Seabee missiles were launched from the sea off Point Mugu, California. The Seabee's were launched from a position floating in water as part of Robert Truax's Sea Dragon project for Aerojet. The Aerobees launched from overseas locations such as the Bahamas utilized a modified launch tower that had originally been used on the USS Norton Sound. NASA further modified that tower into the Mobile Aerobee Launch Facility which was first used in 1966 for launches from Natal, Brazil.Corliss, p 56
A total of 1,037 Aerobees were launched from all locations with a success rate in excess of 97%. The last Aerobee, a 150 MI, flew a Airglow payload at White Sands on January 17, 1985. An artifact of the Aerobee programs which remains in use today is the large enclosed launch tower built for the Aerobee 350 at Launch Complex 36 at White Sands.Eckles, Jim, "Pocket Full Of Rockets," FiddlebikePartnership, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 2013, p 419

Australian launches

An Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America regarding the Launching of Three Aerobee Rockets was established in Canberra, March 1970. A similar treaty was agreed to in 1973 for 7 launches, and in 1977 for 6 launches for various astronomical and solar experiments conducted by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
In 1974, The US DARPA through Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory and Australia agreed to launch 3 rockets under project Hi Star South.
A total of 20 Aerobee launches were made at Woomera Test Range:

Aerobee

Aerobee 350 specificationsNASA Release No: 66-221 Aerobe 350 Passes Test With Payload
Booster:
Loaded weight1305 lb
Thrust48,700 lbf
Duration3.4 s
Impulse170,000 lbf s
NAR designationT 220,000

In fiction

In Men into Space, a 1960 tie-in novel by Murray Leinster for the TV series of the same name, Ed McCauley makes the first manned suborbital spaceflight in the nose-cone of an Aerobee.