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Project Highwater
Project Highwater was an experiment carried out as part of two of the test flights of NASA's Saturn I launch vehicle (using battleship upper stages), successfully launched into a sub-orbital trajectory from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Highwater experiment sought to determine the effect of a large volume of water suddenly released into the ionosphere. The project answered questions about the effect of the diffusion of propellants in the event that a rocket was destroyed at high altitude. The first flight, SA-2, took place on April 25, 1962. After the flight test of the rocket was complete and first stage shutdown occurred, explosive charges on the dummy upper stages destroyed the rocket and released of ballast water weighing into the upper atmosphere at an altitude of , eventually reaching an apex of . The second flight, SA-3, launched on November 16, 1962, and involved the same payload. The ballast water was explosively released at the flight's peak altitude of . For both of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn SA2 Launch
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive. Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but which has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's. The outer atmosphere is gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn I
The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to low Earth orbit payloads.Terminology has changed since the 1960s; back then, 20,000 pounds was considered "heavy lift". The rocket's first stage was built as a cluster of propellant tanks engineered from older rocket tank designs, leading critics to jokingly refer to it as "Cluster's Last Stand". Its development was taken over from the Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1958 by the newly formed civilian NASA. Its design proved sound and flexible. It was successful in initiating the development of liquid hydrogen-fueled rocket propulsion, launching the Pegasus satellites, and flight verification of the Apollo command and service module launch phase aerodynamics. Ten Saturn I rockets were flown before it was replaced by the heavy lift derivative Saturn IB, which used a larger, higher total impulse second stage and an improved guidance and control system. It also led the way to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Launch Vehicle
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch control center, launch control center and systems such as vehicle assembly and fueling. Launch vehicles are engineered with advanced aerodynamics and technologies, which contribute to large operating costs. An orbital spaceflight, orbital launch vehicle must lift its payload at least to the boundary of space, approximately and accelerate it to a horizontal velocity of at least . Suborbital spaceflight, Suborbital vehicles launch their payloads to lower velocity or are launched at elevation angles greater than horizontal. Practical orbital launch vehicles are multistage rockets which use chemical propellants such as Solid-propellant rocket, solid fuel, liquid hydrogen, kerosene, liquid oxygen, or Hypergolic propellants. Launch vehicles are cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battleship (rocketry)
In rocketry, battleship was a term used during the design of the Saturn V to refer to a heavy duty rocket stage which was used to test configuration and integration of a launch vehicle. The term was used in contrast to the boilerplate nickname, which refers to a non-functional mock-up used to test spacecraft. A battleship is functional, but simpler, cheaper and heavier than the operational version. Thus, it functions but does not achieve the same performance (such as thrust-to-weight ratio) as the operational one. In particular, propellant tanks and major structural components were made of thicker, more rugged materials rather than being carefully thinned to save as much weight as possible. This is done mainly to test the liquid engines operationally and the configuration of the propellant tank passively. See also * Project Highwater Project Highwater was an experiment carried out as part of two of the test flights of NASA's Saturn I launch vehicle (using battleship upp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sub-orbital Spaceflight
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital revolution (it does not become an artificial satellite) or reach escape velocity. For example, the path of an object launched from Earth that reaches the Kármán line (at ) above sea level), and then falls back to Earth, is considered a sub-orbital spaceflight. Some sub-orbital flights have been undertaken to test spacecraft and launch vehicles later intended for orbital spaceflight. Other vehicles are specifically designed only for sub-orbital flight; examples include crewed vehicles, such as the X-15 and SpaceShipOne, and uncrewed ones, such as ICBMs and sounding rockets. Flights which attain sufficient velocity to go into low Earth orbit, and then de-orbit before completing their first full orbit, are not considered sub-orbital. Examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Cape Canaveral ( es, Cabo Cañaveral, link=) is a city in Brevard County, Florida. The population was 9,912 at the 2010 United States Census. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne– Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area. History After the establishment of a lighthouse in 1848, a few families moved into the area and a small but stable settlement was born. As the threat of Seminole Indian attacks became increasingly unlikely, other settlers began to move into the area around the Indian River. Post offices and small community stores with postal facilities were established at Canaveral, Canaveral Harbor and Artesia. It is thought the Artesia post office was so named for the ground water of artesian springs that are prevalent in the area. In 1890 a group of Harvard alumni students established a hunters gun club called the Canaveral Harvard Club with a holding of over . Their game hunts helped clear the wilderness for other settlers to move in. In the early 1920s, a group of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ionosphere
The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important role in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere. It has practical importance because, among other functions, it influences radio propagation to distant places on Earth. History of discovery As early as 1839, the German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss postulated that an electrically conducting region of the atmosphere could account for observed variations of Earth's magnetic field. Sixty years later, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal on December 12, 1901, in St. John's, Newfoundland (now in Canada) using a kite-supported antenna for reception. The transmitting station in Poldhu, Cornwall, used a spark-gap transmitter to produce a signal with a freq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SA-2 (Apollo)
Saturn-Apollo 2 (SA-2) was the second flight of the Saturn I launch vehicle, the first flight of Project Highwater, and was part of the American Apollo program. The rocket was launched on April 25, 1962, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. History Launch preparation for the mission began at Cape Canaveral on February 27, 1962, with the arrival of the second Saturn I launch vehicle. The only significant change made to the vehicle from the previous SA-1 flight was the addition of extra baffles in the propellant tanks to mitigate fuel sloshing. While no serious delays were encountered, there were several minor problems reported. A leak was detected between the liquid oxygen dome and injector for the #4 H-1 rocket engine; while attempts were made to fix the problem, it was eventually decided to launch without replacing the engine. Minor problems were found in the guidance subsystem and service structure operations, damaged strain gauges were found in a liquid oxygen stud and truss me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SA-3 (Apollo)
Saturn-Apollo 3 (SA-3) was the third flight of the Saturn I launch vehicle, the second flight of Project Highwater, and part of the American Apollo program. The rocket was launched on November 16, 1962, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. History The Saturn I launch vehicle components were delivered to Cape Canaveral by the barge ''Promise'' on September 19, 1962, but erection of the first-stage booster onto its launch pedestal was delayed until September 21 due to a tropical depression that moved over the Florida peninsula. The dummy second and third stages (S-IV and S-V) and payload were assembled on the booster on September 24. Ballast water was loaded into the dummy stages on October 31, and the RP-1 fuel was loaded on November 14. For this launch, Cape Canaveral director Kurt Debus asked Marshall Space Flight Center director Wernher von Braun, who was overseeing the Saturn project, that no outside visitors be allowed on NASA grounds due to the ongoing tensions of the Cuban Mis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-altitude Nuclear Explosion
High-altitude nuclear explosions are the result of nuclear weapons testing within the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere and in outer space. Several such tests were performed at high altitudes by the United States and the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1962. The Partial Test Ban Treaty was passed in October 1963, ending atmospheric and exoatmospheric nuclear tests. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 banned the stationing of nuclear weapons in space, in addition to other weapons of mass destruction. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 prohibits all nuclear testing; whether over- or underground, underwater or in the atmosphere. EMP generation The strong electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that results has several components. In the first few tenths of nanoseconds, about a tenth of a percent of the weapon yield appears as powerful gamma rays with energies of one to three mega-electron volts (MeV, a unit of energy). The gamma rays penetrate the atmosphere and collide with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
