The Nike Smoke was a

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 ...

, part of a research project on the behavior of the horizontal winds in the upper atmosphere, developed by NASA in the 1960s based on the Nike booster. The goal was to obtain more accurate data on the behavior of these winds in order to guide the design of new vehicles particularly the Saturn family of vehicles. Nike Smoke used the release of titanium tetrachloride at altitude to create a smoke trail at altitude. The release created a white smoke trail which when photographed from two cameras situated 10–12 miles from the launch site and 90 degrees apart. Comparison of the photographs allowed winds aloft to be calculated in both direction and velocity.

Origins

In the early 1960s, NASA's Nike Smoke project was developed at the

Langley Research Center The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. It directly borders Langley Air Force Base and the Back River on the Chesapeake Bay. LaRC has fo ...

and

Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville postal address), is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first ...

laboratories, to study horizontal wind speed and its influence on rocket flights. The Nike booster was chosen due to its high reliability and availability, as thousands were manufactured to meet the requirements of

Project Nike Project Nike (Greek: Νίκη, "Victory") was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft mi ...

. Its cone-shaped tip, with an air intake tube, a tank and an exhaust valve, was specially developed for the mission. In the tank were placed 37 litres of

titanium tetrachloride Titanium tetrachloride is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is an important intermediate in the production of titanium metal and the pigment titanium dioxide. is a volatile liquid. Upon contact with humid air, it forms thick clouds o ...

in order to produce a highly reflective and dense smoke trail, hence its name. This trail extended from an altitude of around 6,000 feet to 75,000 feet. The triangulation of this trail provided data much more precise than previous tests made with

high-altitude balloon High-altitude balloons are crewed or uncrewed balloons, usually filled with helium or hydrogen, that are released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between above sea level. In 2002, a balloon named BU60-1 reached a record altitude of . ...

Development

The project's head was Harold Tolefson, along with his engineers Charles Dozier, Robert Henry and Robert Miller. It was intended to launch about a hundred rockets within a 1-year period from Cape Kennedy, where the launch site was built adjacent to

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

. The first launch was successfully conducted on May 17, 1962. From May 1962 until May 1963, a total of 55 Nike Smokes were launched from Cape Kennedy. From July 1963 until January 1965, more than 70 Nike Smokes were launched from their Wallops Island launch site. The rocket proved to be an effective and cheap method to study wind patterns at high altitudes.

References

External links

Nike]

Nike Smoke Sounding Rocket]
NASA - Wind Velocity Profiles by the Smoke-Trail method - Wallops Island, 1965-1969

NASA - Cultural Resources Nike Smoke YouTube video.
{{Nike rockets Nike (rocket family)

Origins

Development

See also

References

External links