Loki (rocket)

To fill the gap, Klaus Scheufelen [de] suggested building a simple unguided rocket that would be fired en-masse directly up into the bomber streams.

One major change was to replace the warhead area with a dart-like version, which was separated from the main rocket body at engine burnout to continue on without the drag of the airframe and thereby reach higher altitudes.

An initial meeting on June 25, 1954, at the Redstone Arsenal, of Wernher von Braun, Frederick C. Durant, Alexander Satin (of the Air Branch of the Office of Naval Research (ONR)), David Young (of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency), Fred L. Whipple, S. Fred Singer, and Commander George W. Hoover (24 April 1915 - 1 March 1998) resulted in an agreement that a Redstone rocket with a Loki cluster as the second stage could launch a satellite into a 200-mile (320 km) orbit without major new developments.

The Army eventually gave up on Loki in September 1955, in favour of the Nike-Ajax missile, which had recently reached operational status, and the MIM-23 Hawk which was expected to be available shortly.

These WASP rockets were fired from ships directly upward, and the chaff released at apogee where it was tracked by radar in order to accurately measure the winds aloft.

To stabilize the HASP during firing, the dart's small fins were fitted with "bore riders", which guided the rocket along the rifled barrel and thereby also imparted a spin.

[14][15] The instruments consisted primarily of a thermistor to collect temperature, which was broadcast via a small radio operating in the 1680 MHz Meteorological Band.

[11] The SDC version was slightly heavier than the original Loki in order to improve stability during "cruise", which lowered maximum altitude by about 10,000 ft (3,000 m).

[citation needed] The Air Force Meteorologists and NASA's Observational Scientists desired higher apogees with the ROBINSphere payloads in the early 1970s.

This higher apogee allowed for measuring the wind and atmospheric vertical profiles through the 110–95 km region that were unobtainable from the Super Loki boosted ROBINSphere.