Viking (rocket)
The Viking was an American sounding rocket derived from the A4 and was successfully launched 14 times between 1949 and 1957. The rocket was developed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed-Martin ). Like the A4 rocket, it was powered by liquid oxygen and alcohol .
The launch of the Viking 4 on May 11, 1950 was the first flight of an object into space on the American side, measured against the international view that space begins at an altitude of 100 kilometers. The Viking 4 reached an altitude of 169 kilometers. Earlier launches only reached an altitude of 80 kilometers, which the United States considered to be the boundary to space.
On May 24, 1954, Viking 11 set an altitude record for single-stage rockets with an altitude of 254 km. The Viking, launched on October 5, 1954, had a camera on board that took the first pictures of a tropical storm from a height of at least 160 km. The images showed an area approximately 1,600 km in diameter.
The Viking 1 to 7 had a length of 14.90 meters, a fin span of 2.80 meters, a diameter of 0.81 meters and a launch mass of 4.5 tons. The starting thrust was 93 kN. The Viking 8 to 12 had a modified design, they were shorter and had a larger diameter, which led to a more favorable ratio of rocket mass to fuel and to an increase in the attainable flight altitude.
Web links
- Viking sounding rocket in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)