The Terrier Malemute is a two-stage 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 ...

typically used for smaller payloads (less than ). Both the

Terrier Terrier (from Latin ''terra'', 'earth') is a type of dog originally bred to hunt vermin. A terrier is a dog of any one of many breeds or landraces of the terrier type, which are typically small, wiry, game, and fearless. Terrier breeds vary ...

first stage and the Malemute second stage use solid fuel. The Terrier burns for approximately 5.2 seconds, and the Malemute burns for approximately 21.5 seconds. The first stage booster consists of a surplus

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

Terrier MK 12 Mod 1 rocket motor with four fin panels arranged in a cruciform configuration. The Terrier rocket booster has a diameter of . The second stage solid rocket is a Thiokol Malemute TU-758 rocket motor, specially designed for high altitude research rocket applications. Apogee is approximately for a payload or for a payload. For a payload weight of , the acceleration during the boost phase is 26 '' g''. Its first flight was on November 11, 1974, from

Barking Sands The Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands is a U.S. naval facility and airport located five nautical miles (9 km) northwest of the central business district of Kekaha, in Kauai County, Hawaii, United States. PMRF is the world's lar ...

. Other launch sites have included

Poker Flat The Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) is a launch facility and rocket range for sounding rockets in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on a site at Chatanika, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Fairbanks and 1.5 degrees south of the Arc ...

Wallops Island Wallops Island is a island in Accomack County, Virginia, part of the Virginia Barrier Islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination. W ...

and

Fort Yukon, Alaska Fort Yukon (''Gwichyaa Zheh'' in Gwich'in) is a city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska, straddling the Arctic Circle. The population, predominantly Gwich'in Alaska Natives, was 583 at the 2010 census, down from 59 ...

. The Terrier Improved Malemute uses a Terrier Mk. 70 rocket motor for the first stage and a surplus

MIM-104 Patriot The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied states. It is manufactured by the U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and derives its name from the radar compon ...

motor (Thiokol TX-486-1) for the second stage. The Terrier Improved Malemute has made two successful test flights and two failed attempts. Two of these rockets were successfully used in 2012 in the Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX) upper atmospheric study. On 26 November 2019, a Terrier Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket was launched from

Ny-Ålesund Ny-Ålesund ("New Ålesund") is a small town in Oscar II Land on the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard, Norway. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula ( Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned and ...

, Norway. The rocket conducted the ICI-5 mission for

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 t ...

and Norwegian research institutes. The purpose of the mission was ionosphere research. The suborbital flight, with an apogee of , was a partial failure as the rocket experienced a roll rate anomaly, precluding the on board instruments from functioning as intended.

References

External links

* {{Cite web, url=http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code810/vehicles/Terrier_Malemute.pdf, title=Terrier-Malemute – information brochure, publisher=

Sounding rockets of the United States

See also

References

External links