Europa rocket
Encyclopedia
The Europa rocket was an early expendable launch system
of the European Launcher Development Organisation
(ELDO), which was the precursor to the European Space Agency
and its Ariane family of launchers. Europa was built develop space accsess technology and put a European-wide telecommunication and meteorological satellites in orbit. The rocket primarily consisted of Blue Streak
, Coralie, and Astris
rocket stages.
The Royal Aircraft Establishment
at Farnborough was given the job of considering how the missile could be adapted as a satellite launching vehicle, in conjunction with other rocket stages. Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft, the Minister of Aviation, in 1961 thought about a joint European project, the main intention being not to waste the (advanced) development of the rocket, and not to leave space exploration to the Americans and Russians. A possible Anglo-French collaboration was looked at, and ELDO was signed on 16 April 1962.
The three stage design was arrived at, and given the name Eldo A, later named Europa.
In January 1965, the French thought the initial three-stage rocket design would not be sufficiently advanced to carry the size of payloads required, and another rocket - Eldo B - with liquid hydrogen as fuel for the second and third stages to be the better first design, partly due to reduce the cost of the project by eliminating transition test launchers. It would still use the Blue Streak as the first stage. ELDO later disagreed, but the French would get their way, as Eldo B would become Ariane
, first launching in 1979.
The programme was initiated by the UK
and the first launch was planned for November 1966, but the first two stage launch occurred in August 1967, with three stages (Europa 1) in November 1968.
By April 1966, estimated costs had increased to £150 million, from an initial estimated of £70 million. Hopes were not high that it would be suitable for the job. The Italians wanted to give up on ELDO and go for a single European space organisation, not divided nationally as ELDO.
Britain was contributing 40% of the costs. In early June 1966, the British government (Fred Mulley) decided it could not afford the cost, and wanted to leave the ELDO organisation - one of the few European organisations in which a lead player. This was also at a time when satellite technology was about to change the world. But satellites would need to be 23,000 miles above earth, not Europa 1's 125 miles altitude. Britain's contribution was reduced to 27%.
In mid-November 1968, a European Space Conference in Bonn decided on a proposal to merge ELDO with ESRO
to form a pan-european space authority by early 1970; ESA
would not be formed until 1975. Britain was lukewarm to the idea, because it did not believe Europe could launch satellites economically.
By 1970 the French launch base in French Guiana
had cost £45 million, and in that year France became the most important partner in the project, then planning to build two-thirds of the rocket as well as owning the launch site. Although only on paper, Britain's involvement in the project was much reduced, after being largely responsible (with an Australian launch site) for getting the entire project going in the first place. However all of the launchers, to the very end, were completely dependent on the British rocket in the first stage.
In 1970 the project was under a perceived economic threat from America's proposed Space Shuttle
- Europe knew it could not build (and never has) a similar launcher. However the Space Shuttle would never pose an economic threat due to its immense launch costs.
By 1971, over £250 million had been spent on the project, with Europa 2 costing over £4 million.
would provide the first stage (derived from the Blue Streak missile
), France
would build the second and Germany
the third stage. It would carry a satellite designed and built in Italy, weighing around a ton. The telemetry was to be developed by the Netherlands. Belgium was to develop the down range ground guidance system.
By 1969 ELDO was beginning to realise that dividing work up by country led to not enough overall collaboration, with a disjointed framework of planning. This disjointed structure led to the many unsuccessful launch attempts, with no-one really in charge.
The West Germans blamed the explosion of Europa 2 in November 1971 on the immense divisions with ELDO.
. Satellites were proposed to be launched by 1969 or 1970, in a circular polar orbit
at an altitude of 125 miles. ESRO organised the development of early satellites such as ESRO 2B (Iris), built by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Engins Matra
.
In 1967, it was decided the payloads were to be launched by 1970 from French Guiana
, not Australia. In April 1969, Britain decided to invest in a satellite television project by the European Broadcasting Union
.
By the early 1970s the French-German Symphonie
communications satellite were in production, but by then Europa was cancelled in November 1971.
. The chief project engineer of the rocket's assembly at the space projects division of Hawker Siddeley Dynamics was Dr Geoffrey Pardoe
, also the project manager of Blue Streak from 1956-60 (when under de Havilland
). In August 1965, the Blue Streak was tested (static firing trial) with (complete full-weight) dummy upper stages at RAF Spadeadam
(the site was owned by Rolls Royce), with first successful firing on 23 September 1965 lasting 135 seconds. Five days later the site was visited by the Minister of Aviation
, Roy Jenkins
.
In January 1966, it had been transported to Adelaide
, Australia, for launches later that year. Also in the UK in 1967 the go-ahead had been given for the UK's (separately developed) three-stage Black Arrow
rocket launcher (made by Westland Aircraft
, with Bristol Siddeley
rocket engines developed at the Rocket Propulsion Establishment
at Westcott, Buckinghamshire
) - Britain did not need to rely on Europa, and Black Arrow would be ready first.
Britain then withdrew from ELDO, to concentrate on the Black Arrow, but was committed to supplying ELDO with two Blue Streak rocket stages a year until 1976. At this time in 1969, Britain was spending £30 million a year on space, controlled from the Space Division of the Ministry of Technology
. Britain was still dealing with, and funding, ESRO
.
Due to Britain's withdrawal in 1968, ELDO in June 1969 had other ideas than staying with the Blue Streak launcher for Europa's first stage, to give technical work to countries that were still (loyally) part of the organisation. Unfortunately, few other European countries had sufficiently advanced technical knowledge of rockets at that time. The Blue Streak had worked much more successfully than the other engine stages. Nonetheless Blue Streak, ELDO's most successful rocket to that date, was replaced. On 28 April 1970 at a meeting in Paris, ELDO replaced the Blue Streak with the French-made Diamant
. Britain's most significant involvement with the project came to an end. The following year Britain would put its own rocket programme, Black Arrow, (prematurely) out of operation.
By 1970 Hawker Siddeley's Blue Streak launcher had cost £100 million to develop. It was still planned to used on Europa until 1973, when Diamant
would be used as the first stage. Blue Streak was used for the Europa 2's one and only launch on 5 November 1971.
, which was originally planned to be the second stage.
The Coralie was to be tested at Colomb-Béchar
in the Béchar Province
of western Algeria. Tests began in December 1965 at Vernon, Eure
in France, west of Paris. The first successful firing was on 28 November 1966 in northern Africa.
Société Européenne de Propulsion (SEP), at Vernon, would later develop the Viking main engines for Ariane.
(ERNO Raumfahrttechnik GmbH), based in Bremen
, from 1969. The German consortium itself was known as Arbeitsgemeinschaft Satellitenträgersystem (ASAT), which consisted of ERNO and MBB
. Although assembled by ERNO in Bremen, the engine was made by Société d'Etudes pour la Propulsion par Réaction (SEPR), part of Snecma
in Villaroche.
On 2 July 1969, on a launch at Woomera of the thre-stage 108 foot rocket, the Astris third stage failed to light, after the other two had successfully fired.
After the third stage, an apogee kick motor
would be used to put a satellite into a synchronous orbit
.
ERNO would later develop the second stage for the Ariane launcher, at the Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke
(VFW) factory in Bremen, later owned by Daimler Benz Aerospace then DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA).
The first full-size launch, weighing in total 104 tons, took place at Woomera on 24 May 1966, with dummy upper stages. Tests were conducted by Australia's Weapons Research Establishment and the French Laboratoire de Recherche en Balistique et Aérodynamique (based at Vernon). After two minutes and fifteen seconds, six seconds short of the planned flight, the rocket was destroyed as it was thought (by an impact predictor
) to be veering west of the planned trajectory. However, the rocket was exactly on courses and inaccurate readings had been picked up by a radar station 120 miles away.
Two stage testing was planned for June 1967. At 11.12pm GMT on 30 November 1968, the first three-stage Europa 1 launcher put a 550lb Italian satellite-model into orbit.
The first launch from French Guiana on 5 November 1971 was also the first launch of the four-stage Europa 2. It exploded over the Atlantic after three minutes. It landed in the sea 302 miles from the launch site, and had reached a height of 40 miles.
Expendable launch system
An expendable launch system is a launch system that uses an expendable launch vehicle to carry a payload into space. The vehicles used in expendable launch systems are designed to be used only once , and their components are not recovered for re-use after launch...
of the European Launcher Development Organisation
European Launcher Development Organisation
The European Launcher Development Organisation was a multinational consortium formed in the 1960s to build an indigenous European space launch vehicle, Europa....
(ELDO), which was the precursor to the European Space Agency
European Space Agency
The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
and its Ariane family of launchers. Europa was built develop space accsess technology and put a European-wide telecommunication and meteorological satellites in orbit. The rocket primarily consisted of Blue Streak
Blue Streak
-Entertainment:* Blue Streak , a 1995 album by American blues guitarist Luther Allison* Blue Streak , a secret identity used by three separate Marvel Comics supervillains...
, Coralie, and Astris
Astris
In Greek mythology, Astris was one of the Heliades, daughters of Helios, either by the Oceanid Clymene or the Oceanid Ceto. She married the river god Hydaspes and became mother of Deriades, king in India....
rocket stages.
History
The British Blue Streak ballistic missile was cancelled in 1960, when it was was realised it could not compete with the types of missile that the Americans or Russians were building. As part of deciding how to implement Blue Streak inconspicuously, the British inadvertently arrived at the concept of the missile launch facility (missile silos), although none were actually built in Britain. The difficult storage of liquid oxygen in the rocket stalled the introduction of Blue Streak.The Royal Aircraft Establishment
Royal Aircraft Establishment
The Royal Aircraft Establishment , was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence , before finally losing its identity in mergers with other institutions.The first site was at Farnborough...
at Farnborough was given the job of considering how the missile could be adapted as a satellite launching vehicle, in conjunction with other rocket stages. Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft, the Minister of Aviation, in 1961 thought about a joint European project, the main intention being not to waste the (advanced) development of the rocket, and not to leave space exploration to the Americans and Russians. A possible Anglo-French collaboration was looked at, and ELDO was signed on 16 April 1962.
The three stage design was arrived at, and given the name Eldo A, later named Europa.
In January 1965, the French thought the initial three-stage rocket design would not be sufficiently advanced to carry the size of payloads required, and another rocket - Eldo B - with liquid hydrogen as fuel for the second and third stages to be the better first design, partly due to reduce the cost of the project by eliminating transition test launchers. It would still use the Blue Streak as the first stage. ELDO later disagreed, but the French would get their way, as Eldo B would become Ariane
Ariane 1
Ariane 1 is the first version of the Ariane launcher family. Ariane 1 was designed primarily to put two telecommunications satellites at a time into orbit, thus reducing costs. As the size of the satellites grew Ariane 1 gave way to the more powerful Ariane 2 and Ariane 3 launchers.- Vehicle...
, first launching in 1979.
The programme was initiated by the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the first launch was planned for November 1966, but the first two stage launch occurred in August 1967, with three stages (Europa 1) in November 1968.
By April 1966, estimated costs had increased to £150 million, from an initial estimated of £70 million. Hopes were not high that it would be suitable for the job. The Italians wanted to give up on ELDO and go for a single European space organisation, not divided nationally as ELDO.
Britain was contributing 40% of the costs. In early June 1966, the British government (Fred Mulley) decided it could not afford the cost, and wanted to leave the ELDO organisation - one of the few European organisations in which a lead player. This was also at a time when satellite technology was about to change the world. But satellites would need to be 23,000 miles above earth, not Europa 1's 125 miles altitude. Britain's contribution was reduced to 27%.
In mid-November 1968, a European Space Conference in Bonn decided on a proposal to merge ELDO with ESRO
ESRO
The European Space Research Organization was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964...
to form a pan-european space authority by early 1970; ESA
European Space Agency
The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...
would not be formed until 1975. Britain was lukewarm to the idea, because it did not believe Europe could launch satellites economically.
By 1970 the French launch base in French Guiana
French Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...
had cost £45 million, and in that year France became the most important partner in the project, then planning to build two-thirds of the rocket as well as owning the launch site. Although only on paper, Britain's involvement in the project was much reduced, after being largely responsible (with an Australian launch site) for getting the entire project going in the first place. However all of the launchers, to the very end, were completely dependent on the British rocket in the first stage.
In 1970 the project was under a perceived economic threat from America's proposed Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
- Europe knew it could not build (and never has) a similar launcher. However the Space Shuttle would never pose an economic threat due to its immense launch costs.
By 1971, over £250 million had been spent on the project, with Europa 2 costing over £4 million.
Division of labour
Tasks were to be distributed between nations: the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
would provide the first stage (derived from the Blue Streak missile
Blue Streak missile
The Blue Streak missile was a British medium range ballistic missile . The Operational Requirement for the missile was issued in 1955 and the design was complete by 1957...
), France
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...
would build the second and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
the third stage. It would carry a satellite designed and built in Italy, weighing around a ton. The telemetry was to be developed by the Netherlands. Belgium was to develop the down range ground guidance system.
By 1969 ELDO was beginning to realise that dividing work up by country led to not enough overall collaboration, with a disjointed framework of planning. This disjointed structure led to the many unsuccessful launch attempts, with no-one really in charge.
The West Germans blamed the explosion of Europa 2 in November 1971 on the immense divisions with ELDO.
Programme of launcher types
The Europa programme was divided into 4 successive projects :- Europa 1: 4 unsuccessful launches
- Europa 2: 1 unsuccessful launch
- Europa 3: Cancelled before any launch occurred
- Europa 4: Study only, later cancelled
Outcome
The project was marred by technical problems. Although the first stage (the British Blue Streak) launched successfully on each occasion, it was the second or third stage that failed.Payloads
The payload for the rocket was overseen by the European Space Research Organization - ESROESRO
The European Space Research Organization was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964...
. Satellites were proposed to be launched by 1969 or 1970, in a circular polar orbit
Polar orbit
A polar orbit is an orbit in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited on each revolution. It therefore has an inclination of 90 degrees to the equator...
at an altitude of 125 miles. ESRO organised the development of early satellites such as ESRO 2B (Iris), built by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Engins Matra
Matra
Mécanique Aviation Traction or Matra was a French company covering a wide range of activities mainly related to automobile, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry. In 1994, it became a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group and now operates under that name.Matra was owned by the Floirat family...
.
In 1967, it was decided the payloads were to be launched by 1970 from French Guiana
French Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...
, not Australia. In April 1969, Britain decided to invest in a satellite television project by the European Broadcasting Union
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union is a confederation of 74 broadcasting organisations from 56 countries, and 49 associate broadcasters from a further 25...
.
By the early 1970s the French-German Symphonie
Symphonie
The Symphonie satellites were the first communications satellites built by France and Germany to provide geostationary orbit injection and station-keeping during their operational lifetime...
communications satellite were in production, but by then Europa was cancelled in November 1971.
First stage
It was tested three times in 1964, and also in 1965, with a dummy upper stages in 1965. It was assisted by the British National Committee for Space ResearchBritish National Committee for Space Research
The British National Committee for Space Research was Britain's regional membership group of Committee on Space Research .-History:It was set up by the Royal Society in 1958...
. The chief project engineer of the rocket's assembly at the space projects division of Hawker Siddeley Dynamics was Dr Geoffrey Pardoe
Geoffrey Pardoe
Dr Geoffrey Keith Charles Pardoe OBE FREng FRAeS FBIS was Project Manager of the Blue Streak ballistic missile programme...
, also the project manager of Blue Streak from 1956-60 (when under de Havilland
De Havilland
The de Havilland Aircraft Company was a British aviation manufacturer founded in 1920 when Airco, of which Geoffrey de Havilland had been chief designer, was sold to BSA by the owner George Holt Thomas. De Havilland then set up a company under his name in September of that year at Stag Lane...
). In August 1965, the Blue Streak was tested (static firing trial) with (complete full-weight) dummy upper stages at RAF Spadeadam
RAF Spadeadam
RAF Spadeadam is a Royal Air Force station in Cumbria, England close to the border with Northumberland. It is the home of the 9000 acre Electronic Warfare Tactics Range, making it the largest RAF base in the United Kingdom.-History:...
(the site was owned by Rolls Royce), with first successful firing on 23 September 1965 lasting 135 seconds. Five days later the site was visited by the Minister of Aviation
Ministry of Aviation
Ministry of Aviation was a department of the United Kingdom government, established in 1959. Its responsibilities included the regulation of civil aviation and the supply of military aircraft, which it took on from the Ministry of Supply....
, Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
.
In January 1966, it had been transported to Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Australia, for launches later that year. Also in the UK in 1967 the go-ahead had been given for the UK's (separately developed) three-stage Black Arrow
Black Arrow
Black Arrow, officially capitalised BLACK ARROW, was a British satellite carrier rocket. Developed during the 1960s, it was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971...
rocket launcher (made by Westland Aircraft
Westland Aircraft
Westland Aircraft was a British aircraft manufacturer located in Yeovil in Somerset. Formed as a separate company by separation from Petters Ltd just before the start of the Second World War, Westland had been building aircraft since 1915...
, with Bristol Siddeley
Bristol Siddeley
Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd was a British aero engine manufacturer. The company was formed in 1959 by a merger of Bristol Aero-Engines Limited and Armstrong Siddeley Motors Limited. In 1961 the company was expanded by the purchase of the de Havilland Engine Company and the engine division of...
rocket engines developed at the Rocket Propulsion Establishment
Rocket Propulsion Establishment
The Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott, Buckinghamshire on the site of the former RAF Westcott has made a number of notable contributions in the field of rocket propulsion, including input on the rocket design for the Blue Streak missile and the propulsion systems on Chevaline...
at Westcott, Buckinghamshire
Westcott, Buckinghamshire
Westcott is a village and also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located about a mile west of Waddesdon.The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'west cottage'....
) - Britain did not need to rely on Europa, and Black Arrow would be ready first.
Britain then withdrew from ELDO, to concentrate on the Black Arrow, but was committed to supplying ELDO with two Blue Streak rocket stages a year until 1976. At this time in 1969, Britain was spending £30 million a year on space, controlled from the Space Division of the Ministry of Technology
Minister of Technology
The Minister of Technology was a position in the government of the United Kingdom, sometimes abbreviated as "MinTech". The Ministry of Technology was established by the incoming government of Harold Wilson in October 1964 as part of Wilson's ambition to modernise the state for what he perceived to...
. Britain was still dealing with, and funding, ESRO
ESRO
The European Space Research Organization was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964...
.
Due to Britain's withdrawal in 1968, ELDO in June 1969 had other ideas than staying with the Blue Streak launcher for Europa's first stage, to give technical work to countries that were still (loyally) part of the organisation. Unfortunately, few other European countries had sufficiently advanced technical knowledge of rockets at that time. The Blue Streak had worked much more successfully than the other engine stages. Nonetheless Blue Streak, ELDO's most successful rocket to that date, was replaced. On 28 April 1970 at a meeting in Paris, ELDO replaced the Blue Streak with the French-made Diamant
Diamant
The Diamant rocket was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the USA or USSR. As such it is the main predecessor of all subsequent European launcher projects...
. Britain's most significant involvement with the project came to an end. The following year Britain would put its own rocket programme, Black Arrow, (prematurely) out of operation.
By 1970 Hawker Siddeley's Blue Streak launcher had cost £100 million to develop. It was still planned to used on Europa until 1973, when Diamant
Diamant
The Diamant rocket was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the USA or USSR. As such it is the main predecessor of all subsequent European launcher projects...
would be used as the first stage. Blue Streak was used for the Europa 2's one and only launch on 5 November 1971.
Second stage
The French had developed rockets through their VéroniqueVéronique
Véronique is the designation of a French sounding rocket with liquid fuel drive that was developed partly by German scientists who worked in Peenemünde. The Véronique was built between 1950 and 1969 in several versions, of which the versions P2, P6 and R were only experimental models. They were...
, which was originally planned to be the second stage.
The Coralie was to be tested at Colomb-Béchar
Béchar
Béchar , formerly known as Colomb-Béchar, is a capital city of Béchar Province, Algeria. The area is controlled by Algeria, though claims have also been made on it by Morocco. In 1998 the city had a population of 134,954....
in the Béchar Province
Béchar Province
Béchar is a province in Algeria, named after its capital Béchar.The greater part of the province is uninhabitable sand dune fields , in particular the Great Western Erg and the Erg Er Raoui, or dry plains suitable for grazing but with insufficient surface water to support agriculture...
of western Algeria. Tests began in December 1965 at Vernon, Eure
Vernon, Eure
Vernon is a commune in the department of Eure in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.It lies on the banks of the Seine River, about midway between Paris and Rouen...
in France, west of Paris. The first successful firing was on 28 November 1966 in northern Africa.
Société Européenne de Propulsion (SEP), at Vernon, would later develop the Viking main engines for Ariane.
Third stage
This was made in Germany by Entwicklungsring NordEntwicklungsring Nord
The Entwicklungsring Nord - abbreviated ERNO - was a 1961 joint venture of Bremen-based Weserflug and Focke-Wulf with Hamburger Flugzeugbau to develop parts for rockets and get involved in space activities....
(ERNO Raumfahrttechnik GmbH), based in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, from 1969. The German consortium itself was known as Arbeitsgemeinschaft Satellitenträgersystem (ASAT), which consisted of ERNO and MBB
Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm
Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm was a German aerospace company formed as the result of several mergers in the late 1960s. Among its best-known products was the MBB Bo 105 light twin helicopter...
. Although assembled by ERNO in Bremen, the engine was made by Société d'Etudes pour la Propulsion par Réaction (SEPR), part of Snecma
Snecma
Snecma is a major French manufacturer of engines for commercial and military aircraft, and for space vehicles. The name is an acronym for Société Nationale d'Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation .In 2005, the Snecma group, which included Snecma ,...
in Villaroche.
On 2 July 1969, on a launch at Woomera of the thre-stage 108 foot rocket, the Astris third stage failed to light, after the other two had successfully fired.
After the third stage, an apogee kick motor
Apogee kick motor
An apogee kick motor refers to a rocket motor that is regularly employed on artificial satellites destined for a geostationary orbit. As the vast majority of geostationary satellite launches are carried out from spaceports at a significant distance away from Earth's equator, the carrier rocket...
would be used to put a satellite into a synchronous orbit
Synchronous orbit
A synchronous orbit is an orbit in which an orbiting body has a period equal to the average rotational period of the body being orbited , and in the same direction of rotation as that body.-Properties:...
.
ERNO would later develop the second stage for the Ariane launcher, at the Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke
Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke
Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke was a German aerospace company formed by the 1964 merger of Focke-Wulf and Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH...
(VFW) factory in Bremen, later owned by Daimler Benz Aerospace then DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA).
Project history
The first test took place at 9.14am local time on 5 June 1964 at Woomera. Thrust was terminated after 147 seconds, 6 seconds earlier than planned. The point of impact was 625 miles from the launch site, instead of the intended 950 miles. It reached a height of 110 miles and a maximum speed of 6,400 mph. Near space is considered to be around 60-70 miles. The craft's structure was built by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and the rocket engine were the Rolls-Royce RZ2. At this stage the French and German rocket stages were mere fibre-glass scale models.The first full-size launch, weighing in total 104 tons, took place at Woomera on 24 May 1966, with dummy upper stages. Tests were conducted by Australia's Weapons Research Establishment and the French Laboratoire de Recherche en Balistique et Aérodynamique (based at Vernon). After two minutes and fifteen seconds, six seconds short of the planned flight, the rocket was destroyed as it was thought (by an impact predictor
Predicted impact point
The predicted impact point is the location that a ballistic projectile is expected to strike if fired. The PIP is almost always actively determined by a targeting computer, which then projects a PIP marker onto a Head-Up Display...
) to be veering west of the planned trajectory. However, the rocket was exactly on courses and inaccurate readings had been picked up by a radar station 120 miles away.
Two stage testing was planned for June 1967. At 11.12pm GMT on 30 November 1968, the first three-stage Europa 1 launcher put a 550lb Italian satellite-model into orbit.
The first launch from French Guiana on 5 November 1971 was also the first launch of the four-stage Europa 2. It exploded over the Atlantic after three minutes. It landed in the sea 302 miles from the launch site, and had reached a height of 40 miles.
Europa rocket launches
| Flight | Date | Model | Stages | Payload | Launch site |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |
June 5, 1964 | Blue Streak | |
- | Woomera Woomera, South Australia The town, or village, of Woomera is located in the south east corner of the Woomera Prohibited Area ; colloquially known as the Woomera Rocket Range... |
| |
October 20, 1964 | Blue Streak | |
- | Woomera |
| |
March 22, 1965 | Blue Streak | |
- | Woomera |
| |
May 24, 1966 | Blue Streak | |
upper stage mockups | Woomera |
| |
November 15, 1966 | Blue Streak | |
upper stage mockups | Woomera |
| |
August 4, 1967 | Coralie | |
third stage mockup | Woomera |
| |
December 5, 1967 | Coralie | |
third stage mockup | Woomera |
| |
November 30, 1968 | Europa 1 | |
third stage mockup | Woomera |
| |
July 31, 1969 | Europa 1 | |
satellite mockup | Woomera |
| |
June 6, 1970 | Europa 1 | |
satellite mockup | Woomera |
| |
November 5, 1971 | Europa 2 | |
satellite mockup | Kourou Kourou Kourou is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America.Kourou is the location of the Guiana Space Centre, France and ESA's main spaceport.-Geography:... |