|
Atlas B
The Convair SM-65B Atlas, or Atlas B, also designated X-12 was a prototype of the Atlas missile. First flown on 19 July 1958, the Atlas B was the first version of the Atlas rocket to use the stage and a half design with an operational sustainer engine and jettisonable booster engine section. Unlike later Atlas models, the Atlas B used explosive bolts to jettison the booster section. Ten flights were made. Nine of these were sub-orbital test flights of the Atlas as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, with five successful missions and four failures. The seventh flight, launched on 18 December 1958, was used to place the SCORE satellite into low Earth orbit, the first orbital launch conducted by an Atlas rocket. Test history The B series test program took a considerable amount of delays and frustration, not in the least because the Atlas B was far more complicated than the prototype Atlas A, in fact the first launch would feature all hardware systems found on an operational At ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SCORE (satellite)
SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was the world's first purpose-built communications satellite. Launched aboard an American Atlas (rocket family), Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided the first broadcast of a human voice from space, the first successful use of the Atlas as a launch vehicle, and the second test of a communications relay system in space (after July's Pioneer 1),.) It captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via shortwave radio from President of the United States, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower through an on-board tape recorder. The satellite was popularly dubbed "''The Talking Atlas''" as well as "Chatterbox". SCORE, as a geopolitical strategy, aimed to place the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a response to the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites. Background Project SCORE was to be the first orbital project to utilize the Atlas. SCORE, a six-month effort, was the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stage And A Half
A single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle reaches orbit from the surface of a body using only propellants and fluids and without expending tanks, engines, or other major hardware. The term usually, but not exclusively refers to reusable vehicles. To date, no Earth-launched SSTO launch vehicles have ever been flown; orbital launches from Earth have been performed by multi-stage rockets, either fully or partially expendable. The main projected advantage of the SSTO concept is elimination of the hardware replacement inherent in expendable launch systems. However, the non-recurring costs associated with design, development, research and engineering (DDR&E) of reusable SSTO systems are much higher than expendable systems due to the substantial technical challenges of SSTO, assuming that those technical issues can in fact be solved. SSTO vehicles may also require a significantly higher degree of regular maintenance. It is considered to be marginally possible to launch a single-stage-t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project SCORE
SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was the world's first purpose-built communications satellite. Launched aboard an American Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided the first broadcast of a human voice from space, the first successful use of the Atlas as a launch vehicle, and the second test of a communications relay system in space (after July's Pioneer 1),.) It captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via shortwave radio from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower through an on-board tape recorder. The satellite was popularly dubbed "''The Talking Atlas''" as well as "Chatterbox". SCORE, as a geopolitical strategy, aimed to place the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a response to the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites. Background Project SCORE was to be the first orbital project to utilize the Atlas. SCORE, a six-month effort, was the first endeavor of the then-new Advanced Research Proje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apogee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides pertaining to orbits around different bodies have distinct names to differentiate themselves from other apsides. Apsides pertaining to geocentric orbits, orbits around the Earth, are at the farthest point called the ''apogee'', and at the nearest point the ''perigee'', like with orbits of satellites and the Moon around Earth. Apsides pertaining to orbits around the Sun are named ''aphelion'' for the farthest and ''perihelion'' for the nearest point in a heliocentric orbit. Earth's two apsides are the farthest point, ''aphelion'', and the nearest point, ''perihelion'', of its orbit around the host Sun. The terms ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion'' apply in the same way to the orbits of Jupiter and the other planets, the comets, and the asteroids of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sputnik 3
Sputnik 3 (, Satellite 3) was a Soviet satellite launched on 15 May 1958 from Baikonur Cosmodrome by a modified R-7/SS-6 ICBM. The scientific satellite carried a large array of instruments for geophysical research of the upper atmosphere and near space. Sputnik 3 was the only Soviet satellite launched in 1958. Like its American counterpart, Vanguard 1, Sputnik 3 reached orbit during the International Geophysical Year.Green, Constance McLaughlin, and Lomax, Milton.. ''Vanguard a History'', Washington D.C., National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1970, p. 219. NASA SP-4202 History On 30 January 1956, the USSR Council of Ministers approved a project to launch an artificial Earth satellite using the R-7 rocket. Nicknamed "Object D", it would be the fifth type of payload built for the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile, also known by its GURVO designation as 8K71.Siddiqi, Asif A.. ''Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge'', Gainesville, Florida. The University of Fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around , while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude of 2,000 km, about one-third of the Earth radius, radius of Earth and near the beginning of the Van Allen radiation belt#Inner belt, inner Van Allen radiation belt. The term ''LEO region'' is used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. No human spaceflights other than the lunar missions of the Apollo program (1968-1972) have gone beyond L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conventional weapon, Conventional, Chemical weapon, chemical, and Biological agent, biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, but have never been deployed on ICBMs. Most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRVs), allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. The Nuclear weapons of the United States, United States, Russia and weapons of mass destruction, Russia, China and weapons of mass destruction, China, France and weapons of mass destruction, France, India and weapons of mass destruction, India, the United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction, United Kingdom, Nuclear weapons and Israel, Israel, and North Korea and weapons of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sub-orbital
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will not become an artificial satellite nor will it reach escape velocity. For example, the path of an object launched from Earth that reaches the Kármán line (about – above sea level), and then falls back to Earth, is considered a sub-orbital spaceflight. Some sub-orbital flights have been undertaken to test spacecraft and launch vehicles later intended for orbital spaceflight. Other vehicles are specifically designed only for sub-orbital flight; examples include crewed vehicles, such as the X-15 and SpaceShipTwo, and uncrewed ones, such as ICBMs and sounding rockets. Flights which attain sufficient velocity to go into low Earth orbit, and then de-orbit before completing their first full orbit, are not considered sub-orbital. Examples o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sustainer Engine
A sustainer engine is a rocket engine which remains with a spacecraft during its ascent after booster engines have separated from the spacecraft. See also *Multistage rocket A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage is ... References Rocket engines {{rocket-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SM-65 Atlas
The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at an assembly plant located in Kearny Mesa, San Diego. Development dates to 1946, but over the next few years the project underwent several cancellations and re-starts. The deepening of the Cold War and intelligence showing the Soviet Union was working on an ICBM design led to it becoming a crash project in late 1952, along with the creation of several other missile projects to ensure one would enter service as soon as possible. The first test launch was carried out in June 1957, which failed. The first success of the Soviet R-7 Semyorka in August gave the program new urgency, leading to the first successful Atlas A launch in December. Of the eight flights of the A model, only three were successful, but the later models demonstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convair
Convair, previously Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, was an American aircraft-manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft. In 1953, it was purchased by General Dynamics, and operated as their Convair Division for most of its corporate history. Convair is best known for its military aircraft; it produced aircraft such as the Convair B-36 Peacemaker and Convair B-58 Hustler strategic bombers, and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptors. It also manufactured the first Atlas rockets, including the rockets that were used for the crewed orbital flights of Project Mercury. The company's subsequent Atlas-Centaur design continued this success and derivatives of the design remain in use as of 2025. The company also entered the jet airliner business with its Convair 880 and Convair 990 designs. These were smaller than conte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
