The Eridan is a two-stage French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 sounding rocket

Sounding rocket

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...

, which resulted from the use of the Stromboli

Stromboli

Stromboli is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. It is one of the eight Aeolian Islands, a volcanic arc north of Sicily. This name is a corruption of the Ancient Greek name Strongulē which was given to it...

 engine of the Dragon and/or Dauphin as first and second stage. It belonged thereby to a family of solid-propellant rockets

Solid rocket

A solid rocket or a solid-fuel rocket is a rocket engine that uses solid propellants . The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder; they were used by the Chinese in warfare as early as the 13th century and later by the Mongols, Arabs, and Indians.All rockets used some form of...

 from the Belier

Belier

Belier is the designation of a single-step French elevator research rocket, which in three versions between 1961 and 1970 by Hammaguir, Salto di Quirra, Ile you Levant and Kourou was started...

, the Centaure, to the Dragon, which existed Dauphin and the Eridan. As the most efficient version of this row it knew payloads from 100 to 420 kg on heights of 200 to a maximum of 460 km. Its climbing time is between 230 and 350 s.

Main starting place was Kourou.

• http://www.univ-perp.fr/fugeurop/index_e.htm