Seliger Rocket is the designation for the
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 of the
Berthold Seliger Forschungs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH
The Berthold Seliger Forschungs- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (BSFEGmbH) was a company founded by West German rocket technical designer Berthold Seliger in 1961. Seliger was a former assistant theoretician professor Dr. Eugen Sänger. The comp ...
. They were
# A single-stage rocket with a length of 3.4 metres and a takeoff thrust of 50 kN. This rocket was first launched on November 19, 1962, near
Cuxhaven
Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has ...
and reached a height of 40 km.
# A two-stage rocket with a length of 6 metres and a takeoff thrust of 50 kN. This rocket was first launched on February 7, 1963, and reached a height of 80 km.
# A three-stage rocket with a length of 12.8 metres, a diameter of 0.56 metres and a takeoff thrust of 50 kN. This rocket was first launched on May 2, 1963, with reduced fuel and reached an altitude of 110 km. Later with maximum fuel it reached a height of 150 km.
All Seliger Rockets return to the ground by
parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
. The single-stage version was completely reusable. Additional single and two-stage rockets were developed in 1963, which could be also used for military purposes. There were flight demonstrations of these rockets to military representatives of non-NATO countries on December 5, 1963.
See also
*
Rocket experiments in the area of Cuxhaven
Between 1933 and 1964 numerous rocket experiments were carried out in the area of Cuxhaven, Germany.
1930s and 1940s
*In April 1933 Gerhard Zucker launched a mail rocket, which was to fly from Duhnen to the island of Neuwerk, but which fell to E ...
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20050119092811/http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/selocket.htm
Sounding rockets of Germany
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