Pilot (rocket)
Project Pilot (or unofficially NOTSNIK , for NOTS and Sputnik ) is the name of a satellite launcher that was developed by the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) of the United States Navy in the late 1950s and was launched from an aircraft NOTS-EV-1 pilot carried. The existence of this program came to the public only in the 1990s.
history
The pilot was a five-stage rocket propelled by solid rocket motors and the first orbital rocket to be launched from an airplane. Designed for extreme simplicity, the Pilot had no moving parts. The engines of the first two stages were based on the Subroc anti-submarine missile. The total of four HOTROC rocket engines of the first and second stages developed a thrust of 126.4 kN each and had a burn time of 4.86 s. The ABL- X-241 rocket engine of the third stage developed a thrust of 12.1 kN and a burn time of 35 s. In the fourth stage, a NOTS-100 engine with 5.14 kN thrust and 5.7 s burn time was installed. The fifth stage, which was integrated into the payload, had a NOTS engine with 765 N thrust and a burn time of 1 s. The rocket's payload was only 1.05 kg.
The aim of this rocket was to bring tiny surveillance satellites into orbit unnoticed by the Soviet Union.
In just two months, four test versions were launched from the ground and six full rockets were launched from the aircraft. However, all ten start attempts failed and resulted in the program being discontinued. Only at the first and third launch of the orbital version are there any indications that the payload could have reached orbit , but this cannot be conclusively proven.
After the false starts, the improved Caleb missile was also developed by the Naval Ordnance Test Station , but this program was abandoned after a few suborbital test flights before attempting orbital launches. The concept of taking off from an airplane was not taken up again until the 1990s with the Pegasus rocket.
Versions
| rocket | stages | plane | 1st stage | 2nd stage | 3rd stage | 4th stage | 5th stage | Payload (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pilot (trial version) | 1 | - | 2 × HOTROC | - | - | - | - | - |
| pilot | 5 | Douglas F4D-1 Skyray | 2 × HOTROC | 2 × HOTROC | X-241 | NOTS Extruded | NOTS Spherical | 1.05 kg |
Dimensions
- Length - 4.38 m
- Diameter - 0.762 m
- Wingspan - 1.65 m
- Weight - 950 kg
- Summit height - 2400 km
Start list
This is a full pilot missile launch list.
| Run. No. | Date ( UTC ) | Type | Launch site | payload | Type of payload | Payload in kg (gross¹) | Orbit² | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4th July 1958 | Pilot (trial version) | China Lake | - | - | - | Suborbital | Failure Exploded after 1 second |
| 2 | 17th July 1958 | Pilot (trial version) | China Lake | - | - | - | Suborbital | Failure Exploded on ignition |
| 3 | July 25, 1958 | pilot | Point Mugu | Pilot-1 | Technology payload | 1 kg | LEO | Failed contact lost |
| 4th | August 12, 1958 | pilot | Point Mugu | Pilot-2 | Technology payload | 1 kg | LEO | Failure Exploded on ignition |
| 5 | August 16, 1958 | Pilot (trial version) | China Lake | - | - | - | Suborbital | Failure Structural failure after 3.2 seconds |
| 6th | 17th August 1958 | Pilot (trial version) | China Lake | - | - | - | Suborbital | Failure Structural failure after 3 seconds |
| 7th | August 22, 1958 | pilot | Point Mugu | Pilot-3 | Technology payload | 1 kg | LEO | Radio contact lost |
| 8th | August 25, 1958 | pilot | Point Mugu | Pilot-4 | Technology payload | 1 kg | LEO | Failure Exploded in 0.75 seconds |
| 9 | August 26, 1958 | pilot | Point Mugu | Pilot-5 | Technology payload | 1 kg | LEO | Failure of first stage fails, missile falls into sea |
| 10 | August 28, 1958 | pilot | Point Mugu | Pilot-6 | Technology payload | 1 kg | LEO | Failure A first stage engine will fail |
¹ gross weight = (satellites + adapter, housing etc.)
² Track on which the upper stage payload was to be released.
literature
- Peter Pesavento, Secret Revealed About the Early US Navy Space Program , Spaceflight, Vol. 38, no. 7, pp. 243-245, July 1996
- Keith J. Scala: A History of Air-Launched Space Vehicles , Quest, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 34-41, Spring 1994
- Andrew J. LePage: NOTSNIK: The Navy's Secret Satellite Program , Spaceviews, July 1998
- Joel W. Powell: The Nots Air-Launched Satellite Program , Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 50, No. 11, pp. 433-440, November 1997
- Roger D. Launius, Dennis R. Jenkins (editors): To Reach the High Frontier: A History of US Launch Vehicles , University Press of Kentucky, 2002
