Aerobee
Research using V-2 rockets after World War II produced valuable results concerning the nature of cosmic rays, the solar spectrum, and the distribution of atmospheric ozone.
An Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) effort led by James Van Allen led to a contract presented 17 May 1946 by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to Aerojet, at the time a producer of WAC Corporal rockets, for the procurement of 20 liquid-fueled sounding rockets capable of carrying a 150 pounds (68 kg) payload to an altitude of 300,000 feet (91,000 m).
Aerojet was to be the prime contractor while Douglas Aircraft, also a producer of WAC Corporals, would provide aerodynamic engineering and take on some of the production.
[5] As with its progenitor, the WAC Corporal, the Aerobee required a tall launch tower to provide the necessary stability until the relatively slowly accelerating rocket gained enough speed for its fins to be effective in controlling attitude.
[3]: 59 On 25 September 1947, a dummy Aerobee attached to a live booster engine was launched from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico for flight testing.
[2] This Aerobee was the first rocket fired by the US Navy at White Sands[3]: 66 and the subject of the first comprehensive missile range safety program.
Though the rocket flew to nearly 60 miles (97 km) in altitude and took the first color motion-pictures of the Earth from space, the payload was lost and not recovered until 13 July 1950, by which point the film (as well as x-ray emulsions that has also been carried aboard) were unsalvageable.
[2] By the early 1950s Aerobee was the sounding rocket of choice being flown by the Navy Research Laboratory, USAF, and Army Signal Corps.
[5] The first major derivative version, the Aerobee-Hi (first launched in 1955) featured an increase in length, fuel capacity and improved engineering design.
Aerobees were also launched from Centro de Lancamento da Barreira do Inferno (CLBI), Natal, Rio Grande N, Brazil; Kauai Test Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai; Nouadhibou, Dakhlet Nouadhibou, Mauritania; Vandenberg AFB, California; Walker's Cay, Bahamas; and aboard the research vessel USS Norton Sound.
In 1974, the US DARPA through Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory and Australia agreed to launch three rockets under project Hi Star South.
[11]: 82 Aerobees were a vital part of America's efforts in the International Geophysical Year, comprising more than half of the allocated IGY sounding rocket budget.
Post-launch analysis suggested that at least two fragments from the exploding charges had soared away from the Earth with twice the kinetic energy necessary to reach escape velocity and become the first artificial satellites of the Sun.
[27] However, subsequent analysis by space historian Jonathan McDowell suggests that none of the payload fragments actually achieved escape velocity.
