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Falstaff (rocket)
Falstaff was a British sounding rocket used during the 1970s as part of the Chevaline programme to improve the penetrability of the Polaris nuclear missile. It was the largest UK rocket with a solid booster ever launched. Polaris The Falstaff was part of the Chevaline programme to improve the Polaris programme. The Penetration Aids Carrier (PAC) was capable of maneuvering a Falstaff rocket and dispensing missiles. According to John Pitfield, the PAC was launched in 1969, 1975, 1976 and 1978. Since the Australian government at the time was not in favour of nuclear weapons, the testing of the Falstaff vehicles on Australian soil had the potential to cause embarrassment. The details of over 4000 launches from the Woomera Range are still not fully released. Before the revelation that the Falstaff rockets were part of a nuclear program, anti-nuclear campaigners in Australia had believed that testing ended in 1963. Design The Falstaff with the Stonechat Mk 2 booster was long ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geostationary Transfer Orbit
A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellite, Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous orbit, geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into a GTO as an intermediate step for reaching their final orbit. A GTO is highly Elliptic orbit, elliptic. Its perigee (closest point to Earth) is typically as high as low Earth orbit (LEO), while its apogee (furthest point from Earth) is as high as geostationary (or equally, a geosynchronous) orbit. That makes it a Hohmann transfer orbit between LEO and GSO. Larson, Wiley J. and James R. Wertz, eds. Space Mission Design and Analysis, 2nd Edition. Published jointly by Microcosm, Inc. (Torrance, CA) and Kluwer Academic Publishers (Dordrecht/Boston/London). 1991. While some geostationary orbit, GEO satellites are launched direct to that orbit, often the launch vehicle lacks the power to put both the rocket and the satellite into that orbit. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never more than about one-third of the radius of Earth. The term ''LEO region'' is also used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. All crewed space stations to date have been within LEO. From 1968 to 1972, the Apollo program's lunar missions sent humans beyond LEO. Since the end of the Apollo program, no human spaceflights have been beyond LEO. Defining characteristics A wide variety of sources define LEO in terms of altitude. The altitude of an object in an elliptic orbit can vary significantly along the orbit. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woomera Test Range
The RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC) is a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation located in South Australia, approximately north-west of Adelaide. The WRC is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), a division of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The complex has a land area of or roughly the size of North Korea or Pennsylvania. The airspace above the area is restricted and controlled by the RAAF for safety and security. The WRC is a highly specialised ADF test and evaluation capability operated by the RAAF for the purposes of testing defence materiel. The complex has been variously known as the Anglo-Australian Long Range Weapons Establishment and then the Woomera Rocket Range; the RAAF Woomera Test Range and in 2013, the facility was reorganised and renamed to the RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC). The ground area of the WRC is defined by the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) and includes the Nurrungar Test Area (NTA); with a land area of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sounding Rocket
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 (30 to 90 miles) above the surface of the Earth, the altitude generally between weather balloons and satellites; the maximum altitude for balloons is about 40 km (25 miles) and the minimum for satellites is approximately 121 km (75 miles). Certain sounding rockets have an apogee between 1,000 and 1,500 km (620 and 930 miles), 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 (60 and 125 miles). Etymology The origin of the term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chevaline
Chevaline () was a system to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the British Polaris nuclear weapons system. Devised as an answer to the improved Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences around Moscow, the system increased the probability that at least one warhead would penetrate Moscow's anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defences, something which the Royal Navy's earlier UGM-27 Polaris re-entry vehicles (RV)s were thought to be unlikely to do. Chevaline used a variety of penetration aids and decoys to offer so many indistinguishable targets that an opposing ABM system would be overwhelmed attempting to deal with them all, ensuring that enough warheads would get through an ABM defence to be a reasonable deterrent to a first strike. The project was highly secret, and survived in secrecy through four different governments before being revealed in 1980. The system was in service from 1982 to 1996, when the Polaris A3T missiles it was fitted to were replaced with the Tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Polaris Programme
The United Kingdom's Polaris programme, officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System, provided its first submarine-based nuclear weapons system. Polaris was in service from 1968 to 1996. Polaris itself was an operational system of four ballistic missile submarines, each armed with 16 Polaris A-3 ballistic missiles. Each missile was able to deliver three ET.317 thermonuclear warheads. This configuration was later upgraded to carry two warheads hardened against the effects of radiation and nuclear electromagnetic pulse, along with a range of decoys. The British Polaris programme was announced in December 1962 following the Nassau Agreement between the US and the UK. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided the formal framework for cooperation. Construction of the submarines began in 1964, and the first patrol took place in June 1968. All four boats were operational in December 1969. They were operated by the Royal Navy, and based at Clyde Naval Base on Scotland' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penetration Aid
A penetration aid (or "penaid") is a device or tactic used to increase an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead's chances of penetrating a target's defenses. These can consist of both ''physical devices'' carried within the ICBM (as part of its payload), as well as ''tactics'' that accompany its launch or flight path, operate as either passive or active counters, and may include one or more of the following concepts: * The missile booster can have a short burn time, and/or (if existing) the MIRV bus carrying the nuclear warheads can have some form of stealth technology, thereby hindering detection before the warhead reentry vehicles are released. * MIRV and MRV (instead of single warhead missiles) themselves largely improve penetration since there are many more warheads to destroy than missiles, which may saturate the defensive system's stock of weapons. However, these technologies are very demanding since they require the ability to highly miniaturize both the physics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Australia does not possess weapons of mass destruction, although it has participated in extensive research into nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the past. Australia chairs the Australia Group, an informal grouping of countries that seek to minimise the risk of assisting chemical and biological weapon proliferation. All states participating in the Australia Group are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention, and strongly support efforts under those Conventions to rid the world of chemical and biological weapons. As with chemical and biological weapons, Australia does not possess nuclear weapons and is not at all known to be seeking to develop them. Biological weapons Australia has advanced research programs in immunology, microbiology and genetic engineering that support an industry providing vaccines for domestic use and export. It also has an extensive wine industry and produces microorganisms on an industrial scale to sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-nuclear Movement In Australia
Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–1973 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–1977 debate about uranium mining in Australia.Koutsoukis, Jason (25 November 2007)Rudd romps to historic win''The Age''. Retrieved 15 December 2010. Several groups specifically concerned with nuclear issues were established in the mid-1970s, including the Movement Against Uranium Mining and Campaign Against Nuclear Energy (CANE), cooperating with other environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation.McLeod, Roy (1995). "Resistance to Nuclear Technology: Optimists, Opportunists and Opposition in Australian Nuclear History" in Martin Bauer (ed) ''Resistance to New Technology'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–173. The movement suffered a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woomera, South Australia
Woomera, unofficially Woomera village, refers to the domestic area of RAAF Base Woomera. Woomera village has always been a Defence-owned and operated facility. The village is located on the traditional lands of the Kokatha people in the Far North region of South Australia, but is on Commonwealth-owned land and within the area designated as the 'Woomera Prohibited Area' (WPA). The village is approximately north of Adelaide. In common usage, "Woomera" refers to the wider RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC), a large Australian Defence Force aerospace and systems testing range (the 'Woomera Test Range' (WTR)) covering an area of approximately and is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force. Woomera 'village' is part of RAAF Base Woomera which, along with the ''Woomera Test Range'' (WTR), forms the larger entity known as the Woomera Range Complex (WRC), promulgated by Chief of Air Force (CAF) in June 2014. As at the the Woomera Village had a population of 146, and its usual pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The demonym ''Adelaidean'' is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The Traditional Owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna people. The area of the city centre and surrounding parklands is called ' in the Kaurna language. Adelaide is situated on the Adelaide Plains north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, between the Gulf St Vincent in the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges in the east. Its metropolitan area extends from the coast to the foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, and stretches from Gawler in the north to Sellicks Beach in the south. Named in honour of Queen Adelaide, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for the only freely-settled British province in Australia. Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide's foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Event Cover
Event covers are a type of stamp covers (decorated, stamped and canceled commemorative envelopes) that are created to celebrate an event or note an anniversary. A design (called a "cachet") is generally placed on the left side of the envelope (although there are also "all over" cachets). It explains what is being commemorated on what date, and generally also includes an illustration page. Ideally, the stamps used relate to the celebration (for instance, space stamps for a shuttle launch). Cancels can often be obtained in the city of the event (such as Kitty Hawk for the Wright Brothers first flight anniversary). In the United States, larger quantities can be obtained from a special cancellation unit maintained by the Postal Service in Kansas City, Missouri. If a special cancellation (one with a design) has been created for a particular event, the cancel can generally only be received from the local post office involved in the event. A good example of a special Event cover was o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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