PART 1: ASTROBEE D SOUNDING ROCKET SPECIFICATIONS:

Designed by Aerojet General in the late 1960's to loft payloads from 7.5-lb to 50-lb to altitudes of 50-miles (264,000 ft) to 90-miles (475,000 ft). This was the first sounding rocket to use the composite propellant that is widely used in high power rocket motors. The 17 second burn motor had dual thrust, with 5,200-lb for the first 2 seconds, and 2,000-lb of sustained thrust for the next 15 seconds. The motor produces a thrust to weight rato of 4:1 for the Astrobee D. This motor would propell the Astrobee D to a maximum speed of Mach 4.0 at 18.0 seconds into flight with a dynamic pressure or nearly 6,300 psf from 15 to 16 seconds into flight. The rocket Cp is located at the front edge of the fins and the Cg is located 39.18 inches in front of the fins, providing a very good stability at 6.53 calipers. The Cp decreases up to Mach 1.0 and steadily increases to motor burn out at Mach 4.0. The Cg steadily increases, leveling off from Mach 2.3 to 2.9, and then continuing to increase until motor burn out.

The first two rockets designated SN/001 and S/N002 were launched form White Sands, New Mexico on June 8, 1970. The liftoff weight was 227.5-lb, propellant weight was 135-lb., and payload weight was 33.2-lb. Total rocket length is 158.86 inches, with a diameter of 6.0 inches, and a motor length of 109.85 inches (excluding fin length). Payload length is 45.45 inches, including a 5:1 Ogive nose cone at 30.91 inches, and a payload section at 14.54 inches. The rocket motor length is 109.90 inches, and with the fins installed, the motor length is 113.41 inches. Other details include the forward fly-away launch-lug band, the rear launch lug cannister, the two payload antennas, two payload static ports, payload umbilical port, and payload screws. The nose cone and fins are painted with a light-tan colored firex ablative coating at a thickness of 0.0254 cm. The fins are made of magnesium with a steel cuff on the leading edge.

The first flight acheived an altitude of 61 miles (322,000 ft.). In 1972 the Air Force and Defense Nuclear Agency used this rocket for meteorological flights. NASA/Wallops began using the Astrobee D in 1972 and has flown a total of 18 of these rockets until June of 1980. Over 40 of these sounding rocket were lanuched between 1970 to 1980.

The author has provided copies of two Astrobee D NASA Flight Plans for flights 23.012 UU and 23.023 UU launched from Wallops on June 7 and June 8, 1979, which also includes Astrobee D Rocket Performance Graphs. Typical of NASA Astrobee D flights launched at 84 degree elevation, with apogee at 128 sec at a speed of 480 ft/sec. The 45-lb payload housed a 28 ft. diameter mylar disk-gap band parachute with no drogue chute that was deployed at 143 seconds (15 seconds past apogee) at a speed of 685 ft/sec. At these altitudes the dynamic pressure of the atmoshphere is almost 0 psf, so the speed of the payload is needed to harness the kinetic energy of the payloads velocity to aid parachute inflation, which still took several thousand feet to open in the thin air.