Astrobee is the designation of series of American

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 ...

s with 1 - 3 stages.

Aerojet 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. ...

-designed family of

s conceived as a lower-cost replacement of the liquid-propellant

Aerobee The Aerobee rocket was one of the United States' most produced and productive sounding rockets. Developed by the Aerojet Corporation, the Aerobee was designed to combine the altitude and launching capability of the V-2 with the cost effective ...

. Several versions were realized: * The three-stage Astrobee 500 (first stage: Genius, second stage: Alcor, third stage: Asp) has a ceiling of 1000 km, a

takeoff Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a t ...

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

of 161 kN, a takeoff

weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. Some standard textbooks define weight as a Euclidean vector, vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weigh ...

of 900 kg, a

diameter In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid for ...

of 0.38 m and a length of 7.80 m. * The three-stage Astrobee 1500 (first stage: Recruit, second stage: Aero jet, third stage: Alcor) has a ceiling of 1000 km, a takeoff thrust of 566 kN, a takeoff weight of 5200 kg, a diameter of 0.79 m and a length of 10.40 m. * The two-stage Astrobee 200 (first stage: Genius, second stage: Alcor) has a ceiling of 350 km, a takeoff thrust of 161 kN, a takeoff weight of 800 kg, a diameter of 0.38 m and a length of 6.30 m. * The single-stage Astrobee D has a ceiling of 140 km, a takeoff thrust of 23.00 kN, a takeoff weight of 100 kg, a diameter of 0.15 m and a length of 3.90 m. * The single-stage Astrobee F has a ceiling of 375 km, a takeoff thrust of 178.00 kN, a takeoff weight of 1500 kg, a diameter of 0.38 m and a length of 11.50 m.

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Sounding rockets of the United States {{rocket-stub