Author Topic: Blue Scout Junior with standard Scout fairing  (Read 2225 times)

Offline Skyrocket

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Blue Scout Junior with standard Scout fairing
« on: 05/18/2011 01:39 pm »
I've just stumbled over the Blue Scout Junior on display at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum.

http://www.afspacemuseum.org/displays/BlueScoutJr/index.htm

This one has a standard Scout Fairing, which i had never seen before on an Blue Scout Junior. It would make some sense to use this fairing on the SLV-1C version with the Altair upper stage, but all photos of the SLV-1C version show a different fairing.

* Does anyone know, which Version this is?

* Has this version ever flown?

* From which project is this rocket left over?

Offline mike robel

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Re: Blue Scout Junior with standard Scout fairing
« Reply #1 on: 05/18/2011 04:08 pm »
What I like about the description is this:

"Called the "poor man's rocket", Scout vehicles were manufactured relatively inexpensively by combining "off the shelf' solid-rocket propellant stages from existing programs. The Scout first stage was adapted from the U.S. Navy Polaris missile, the second stage from the U.S. Army Sergeant missile and the third and fourth stages were from the civilian Vanguard rocket program"

Some Lego's look to be in play.  :)

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Blue Scout Junior with standard Scout fairing
« Reply #2 on: 05/18/2011 09:30 pm »
What I like about the description is this:

"Called the "poor man's rocket", Scout vehicles were manufactured relatively inexpensively by combining "off the shelf' solid-rocket propellant stages from existing programs. The Scout first stage was adapted from the U.S. Navy Polaris missile, the second stage from the U.S. Army Sergeant missile and the third and fourth stages were from the civilian Vanguard rocket program"

Some Lego's look to be in play.  :)

The results of this plug-and-play approach were a lot of Scout failures during the early years.  Nine of the first 17 orbital attempts, and 14 of the first 31 Scouts of all types, failed.  The rocket had to be largely re-engineered after the fact. 

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 05/18/2011 09:36 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline Art LeBrun

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Re: Blue Scout Junior with standard Scout fairing
« Reply #3 on: 05/19/2011 06:03 am »
After 5 Scout launches (1 success 1 partial success and 3 failures) in the fledgling DMSP program at VAFB DoD cancelled a total of 8 Scouts on 2 contracts in late 1963 and in 1964 launched 4 DMSP satellites on 2 Thor-Agenas - a stopgap measure until Thor-Burner assumed the launch task in 1965. Happily Scout went to improve greatly as a small payload launcher.
« Last Edit: 05/20/2011 09:27 pm by Art LeBrun »
1958 launch vehicle highlights: Vanguard TV-4 and Atlas 12B

 

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