Aerobee

Aerobee-Hi missile at the White Sands Missile Range Museum

Aerobee-170 missile at the White Sand Missile Range Museum

The Aerobee (also originally known as the Aerojet General X-8 ) rocket was a small (about 8 meters long) uncontrolled sounding rocket , which was launched mainly in the 1950s for exploring the high atmosphere and cosmic rays in the USA.

The Aerobee was built by Aerojet General . The company began operations in 1946 and made the first complete aerobee launch on April 24, 1947 on the White Sands Missile Range , reaching an altitude of 58 kilometers. The rocket had two stages : a solid rocket as the launch stage and a liquid rocket (fuel aniline , oxidizer nitric acid ) as the second stage. The rocket could reach altitudes of 230 (in later versions up to 400) kilometers. The payload usually returned to Earth on a parachute .

The first flight of an Aerobee carried out with measuring devices was the 5th flight, which took place on March 5, 1948 at White Sands and which carried instruments for studying cosmic rays. It reached an altitude of 117.5 kilometers. The last flight of the Aerobee was in 1958, around 165 flights - including some variants - took place. The developers of the Aerobee also designed the Aerobee-Hi (first launch: 1955).

Of all Aerobee variants, 1037 copies were launched. The last launch took place on January 17, 1985.

Models

Aerobee

• Payload: 68 kg
• Summit height: 130 km
• Starting thrust: 18.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 727 kg
• Diameter: 0.38 m
• Length: 7.80 m

Aerobee 75

• Summit height: 80 km
• Starting thrust: 7.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 400 kg
• Length: 6.00 m

Aerobee 170

• Starting thrust: 225.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 1,270 kg
• Diameter: 0.42 m
• Length: 12.60 m

Aerobee 170 A

• Summit height: 200 km
• Starting thrust: 217.00 kN
• Mass: 1,270 kg
• Diameter: 0.42 m
• Length: 12.40 m

Aerobee 170 B

• Summit height: 200 km
• Starting thrust: 225.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 1,270 kg
• Diameter: 0.42 m
• Length: 12.40 m

Aerobee 200

• Starting thrust: 225.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 1,600 kg
• Diameter: 0.42 m
• Length: 12.60 m

Aerobee 300

• Payload: 45 kg
• Summit height: 300 km
• Starting thrust: 18.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 983 kg
• Diameter: 0.38 m
• Length: 9.90 m

Aerobee 350

• Payload: 227 kg
• Summit height: 450 km
• Starting thrust: 217.00 kN
• Takeoff weight: 3,839 kg
• Diameter: 0.56 m
• Length: 15.90 m
• Wingspan of the fins: 2.30 m

Web links

Commons : Aerobee  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Aerobee in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
• Aerojet General X-8 Series ( Memento from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Description on history.nasa.gov p. 14. (PDF; 1.2 MB) Retrieved on January 14, 2013 .