Arcas (rocket)

[1] Arcas launch sites included White Sands, Vandenberg, Fort Churchill, Point Mugu, San Nicolas, Cape Canaveral LC43, Eglin, Kronogård, Kindley, McMurdo Station, Barking Sands, CELPA (Mar Chiquita), Ascension, Birdling's Flat, Wallops Island LA2, Thumba, Barbados, Keweenaw, Thule AFB, Barreira do Inferno Launch Center, Antigua, Fort Greely, Grand Turk Island, Tartagal, Fort Sherman and Primrose Lake.

[1] A 1957 Stanford Research Institute study proposed a small single-stage sounding rocket to measure high-altitude winds to determine the spread of radioactive fallout.

The Arcas was powered by a slow-burning SR45-AR-1 solid-propellant motor with an end-burning grain, generating an average thrust of 336 pounds-force (1,490 N; 152 kgf) for 30 seconds.

Arcas was launched from a tubular closed-breech launcher, which provided a faster boost by the piston action of trapping the engine gasses.

[2] When used for radar calibration in the 1960s, the Arcas rocket configuration consisted of a closed breech launcher, a sounding rocket, and two payload configurations, one a parachute recovery system with a DMQ-6 telemetry transmitter compatible with standard meteorological ground station receiving equipment, the other a one-meter metalized balloon for radar calibration.

With a boost from a gas generator-fed launch tube, Super Arcas was capable of reaching altitudes as high as 100 kilometres (62 mi).

First Arcas meteorological rocket, shown at Wallops prior to flight test, July 31, 1959.
First Arcas meteorological rocket, shown at Wallops prior to flight test, July 31, 1959.
Arcas rocket being loaded into launch tube
Arcas rocket in flight
Boosted Arcas sounding rocket shape