The RM-89 Blue Scout I was an 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 ...

which was flown four times between January 1961 and April 1962. It was used for two HETS test flights, and a flight to investigate

atmospheric re-entry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

. It was a member of the

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement **Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom **Scouts BSA, sectio ...

family of rockets. The Blue Scout I was a four-stage rocket derived from the

Scout X-1 Scout X-1 was an American expendable launch system and sounding rocket which was flown seven times between August 1960 and October 1961. Four orbital and three suborbital launches were made, with four of the launches resulting in failures. The ...

. All four launches occurred from Launch Complex 18B at the

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 two launches were conducted on 7 January and 9 May 1961 respectively. They both carried

HETS A1 Hets or HETS may refer to: * Het peoples * Heavy Equipment Transport System, a military logistics vehicle * Helicopter External Transport System * ''Torment'' (1944 film) (Swedish: ') See also * Het (disambiguation) Het or HET may refer to: ...

plasma Plasma or plasm may refer to: Science * Plasma (physics), one of the four fundamental states of matter * Plasma (mineral), a green translucent silica mineral * Quark–gluon plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics Biology * Blood pla ...

research experiments on

suborbital 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 r ...

trajectories. The second two launches were conducted on 12 April 1962, with a payload that was intended to investigate atmospheric reentry. The first two launches was successful, however recovery of the payload failed. The second two launches failed due to problems with the Blue Scout. The Blue Scout II was a four-stage derivative of the Blue Scout I. It was flown four times in 1961, twice with HETS payloads, and twice with the

Mercury-Scout 1 Mercury-Scout 1, or MS-1, was a United States spacecraft intended to test tracking stations for Project Mercury flights. It grew out of a May 5, 1961 NASA proposal to use Scout rockets to launch small satellites to evaluate the worldwide Mercury ...

satellite.

References

* * * * {{USAF missiles 1961 in spaceflight 1962 in spaceflight Blue Scout I