Early European spaceflight history, manned and unmanned, about 1950-1975

[leovinus]

I have been impressed for example by the archival donation of local aerospace history documents that has occurred to the Huntington museum in Pasadena of which one or two have been shown in exhibitions.

What would a European analogue to this look like ?

The British Library pointed me to Cranfield University, UK, where there are a few more relevant Hawker Siddeley Dynamics documents One is even called "The space tug situation" by HSD, 1971.  Another "Blue streak/Centaur launcher"

[leovinus]

I should also have mentioned "Fire Across the Desert" by "peter Morton" which covers Woomera launches from 1946-1980 and also "Woomera" by Ivan Southall my copy of which was published in  Sydney by Angus & Robertson in 1962.

Carl

Which you can download here as ePub and PDF
https://www.dst.defence.gov.au/publication/fire-across-the-desert

[plutogno]

I have published a couple papers in the JBIS on the topic of early European deep space mission projects. I can post the pdfs somewhere if anyone is interested.

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006JBIS...59..204U/abstract

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008JBIS...61...98U/abstract

[Emmettvonbrown]

I'll be interested, for sure !

[leovinus]

I'll be interested, for sure !

Same here, thank you.

[plutogno]

Here you go!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ahvZcQ4-Iu3Ah0Hy-ADEUCjspYSDQwdF/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MaEahF7vHFwtxy2XOYZ8YA1is_4tVWV4/view?usp=drivesdk

[Emmettvonbrown]

Wonderful ! First time I find a good summary of ESRO lunar plans of the 1960's. I agree with your conclusions that it would have been interesting to have a third lunar program, either from Europe or China.

[Michel Van]

we have at Secret Project Forum
two section About European Rockets

Blue Streak based satellite transport system (mostly British)
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/blue-streak-based-satellite-transport-system.5063/

Early European rocketry projects ( French, British, German ELDO ESA )
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/early-european-rocketry-projects.4130/

we discuss stuff french heavy launcher, alternative to Ariane Rocket
or plans for nuclear upper stage for Europa rockets I-III

[Michel Van]

one of wildes proposal for Europa Rocket:

Etude d'un etage nucleare pour launceur lourd Europeen by J.A. Dupont of SNECMA, 1962
a Nuclear powered stage for large launch vehicle that bring 10 ton in low earth orbit
By A Graphite-moderated uranium 235 reactor in which hydrogen is heated to 2500K°
Yielding a ISP of 800 sec.
The substitution of single nuclear stage for both upper stages of ELDO vehicle,
Mr Dupont said, should make it possible to double the payload/initial weight ratio

Source:
Flight International 6 June 1963 page 892

but it not stop here, ELDO was study powerful upper stage to bring Satellites into GEO
next Ion - arc jet engines, were also Nerva type engine in consideration

In 1971,  CRYOROCKET under a CECLES/ELDO contract , order at SEP a study for small NTR engine
It had to be launch as third stage on Europa III rocket.
for a larger payload than 1,680 kg into from a 200km circular orbit to a 36,000 geostationary orbit.
(Europa III in two stage configuration)
The stage's mass is 5.5 tons for an estimated ISP of 815s
The thrust was quite low, with about 2 kN.
the Europa III would bring the third stage in 200 km circular orbit
A first burn would bring the payload to a transfer orbit, while a second, after a ballistic phase,
would go to Geostationary orbit. (stage remain in GEO ?)

source:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/early-european-rocketry-projects.4130/post-675091

[woods170]

<snip>
And look at all 32? front pages at
https://ruimtevaartdatabank.nl/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/library/pdf/7095.pdf#search=&phrase=true

Ah yes. NRM archive location-ID BU-009-05-D-03 (BUnker, shelving unit 009, case 05, shelf D, box 03)

In case you wondered how I know this: I was going thru these very ESRO/ELDO bulletins during archive duty last week.

[leovinus]

<snip>
And look at all 32? front pages at
https://ruimtevaartdatabank.nl/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/library/pdf/7095.pdf#search=&phrase=true

Ah yes. NRM archive location-ID BU-009-05-D-03 (BUnker, shelving unit 009, case 05, shelf D, box 03)

In case you wondered how I know this: I was going thru these very ESRO/ELDO bulletins during archive duty last week.

Jealous Any more gems in archive related to above discussion? And not in other ESA et al archives?

[leovinus]

As another example, the European Space tug we discussed earlier. The European designs were from Messerschmidt-Boelkow Blohm (MBB) and Hawker-Siddeley Dynamics (HSD). One located tug study was

Study of the Use of Post-Apollo Transportation Elements for High-Energy Solar System Exploration Mission (HESSEM), MBB-URV-52(72), N72-33878, June 1972

while the related study

European space tug system study. Pre-phase A ( MBB-URV-38-71 ]  N73-19908

does not seem to be on the web as PDF anywhere. I am in the process of requesting a copy via DLR in Germany though.

The DLR archives graciously sent me a copy of the missing report MBB-URV-38-71  for further study. I think it will clarify some aspects. Happy to know that we can still access at least some of these reports.

[leovinus]

In 1971,  CRYOROCKET under a CECLES/ELDO contract , order at SEP a study for small NTR engine
It had to be launch as third stage on Europa III rocket.
for a larger payload than 1,680 kg into from a 200km circular orbit to a 36,000 geostationary orbit.
(Europa III in two stage configuration)
The stage's mass is 5.5 tons for an estimated ISP of 815s
The thrust was quite low, with about 2 kN.
the Europa III would bring the third stage in 200 km circular orbit
A first burn would bring the payload to a transfer orbit, while a second, after a ballistic phase,
would go to Geostationary orbit. (stage remain in GEO ?)

Seems like a lot of material in the ESA archives. That will require analysis
https://archives.eui.eu/search?utf8=✓&search-terms=CRYOROCKET

[woods170]

<snip>
And look at all 32? front pages at
https://ruimtevaartdatabank.nl/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/library/pdf/7095.pdf#search=&phrase=true

Ah yes. NRM archive location-ID BU-009-05-D-03 (BUnker, shelving unit 009, case 05, shelf D, box 03)

In case you wondered how I know this: I was going thru these very ESRO/ELDO bulletins during archive duty last week.

Jealous Any more gems in archive related to above discussion? And not in other ESA et al archives?

Some stuff from non-ESA/ESRO/ELDO Eurpean spaceflight programs. Quite a bit of materials on Dutch national programs ANS and IRAS. Most of the non-images stuff like documentation, objects, magazines and books have been catalogued and entered into ZCBS over the past decade. ZCBS is where you found the ESRO/ELDO bulletin front pages and contents listings.

NRM archive doesn't digitize documentation, magazines or books. Of the latter two only the front page and contents listings are imaged and added to ZCBS entry. Documentation is entered into ZCBS with a short description only. We don't have the time, nor the funding to digitize several millions of pages of documentation.

Physical images, such as photo prints, photo slides, photo negatives and posters are a different matter though. We've been putting off any efforts to scan those and add them to ZBBS (the image archive section of ZCBS). About a year ago NRM finally managed to get someone crazy enough to take on the challenge of digitizing ~30,000 images and adding them to ZBBS. One year in and roughly ~1000 images have been processed. It's time consuming as heck, plus only one person is working on it. The other ten team members all have their own duties. Nothing at NRM is done fast, courtesy of the entire team consisting of volunteers. Bar three of them (myself included) the team consists of retirees, and they are not getting any younger (let alone faster). On average they put in two full days of work for NRM each week however.

[Michel Van]

on ESRO/ELDO documents
there spread out over Europe

Mostly ELDO documents are store in Archive in Italy, Turin if recall right.(unclear it still exist)
The rest in Netherlands, ESA HQ Paris and some copies at EU in Brussels.
But also in ELDO member state  have allot documents on Europa rocket hardware
Like Britain on Blue Streak in National archives spread out over kingdom.
Same goes for France or Germany were documents mostly found in university library.

[woods170]

on ESRO/ELDO documents
there spread out over Europe

Mostly ELDO documents are store in Archive in Italy, Turin if recall right.(unclear it still exist)
The rest in Netherlands, ESA HQ Paris and some copies at EU in Brussels.
But also in ELDO member state  have allot documents on Europa rocket hardware
Like Britain on Blue Streak in National archives spread out over kingdom.
Same goes for France or Germany were documents mostly found in university library.

Emphasis mine.

Can confirm this is the case. The ESRO/ELDO documentation that we have in the NRM archive was sourced from all over Europe. Particularly for ELDO there was no such thing as a central documentation repository. This was due to the very nature of the Europa rocket development program: individual countries were solely responsible for development of the rocket stages assigned to them. So, information was not shared properly between participating countries. This became painfully clear by the time Europa began to fly test flights with "live" second and third stages: it was failure upon failure.

[Emmettvonbrown]

Europa II was like the Monty Pythons Swamp castle. When it wasn't the fairing being stuck, it was Astris not starting, and when both worked by some miracle, Coralie went astray. As you say: zero coordination between too many countries. Interesting to know this applied to technical documentation, hence archives afterwards...

[TheKutKu]

As another example, the European Space tug we discussed earlier. The European designs were from Messerschmidt-Boelkow Blohm (MBB) and Hawker-Siddeley Dynamics (HSD). One located tug study was

Study of the Use of Post-Apollo Transportation Elements for High-Energy Solar System Exploration Mission (HESSEM), MBB-URV-52(72), N72-33878, June 1972

while the related study

European space tug system study. Pre-phase A ( MBB-URV-38-71 ]  N73-19908

does not seem to be on the web as PDF anywhere. I am in the process of requesting a copy via DLR in Germany though.

The DLR archives graciously sent me a copy of the missing report MBB-URV-38-71  for further study. I think it will clarify some aspects. Happy to know that we can still access at least some of these reports.

I'm not sure what's their policy/legal status, but I'd definitely appreciate if you could share some informations from these reports whenever you have the time. Thanks.

[Michel Van]

the University and State Library Darmstadt

has allot suff about ELDO
since i got new work in Darmstadt i will visit the Library to see the Data.

Europa II was like the Monty Pythons Swamp castle. When it wasn't the fairing being stuck, it was Astris not starting, and when both worked by some miracle, Coralie went astray. As you say: zero coordination between too many countries. Interesting to know this applied to technical documentation, hence archives afterwards...

it was more of Monty Pythons or Spike Milligan Sketch...

Dokumentation on Europa rocket for Team
Blue Streak - only in English 
Coralie - uniquement en français
Astris - in German and English
Payload - solo in italiano

assembly of Europa rocket
the British erect the Blue Streak on launch pad connect it on it and leave
then came french put the Coralie on top of Blue Streak and leave
follow by Germans putting Astris on top of that, while they search for French do problems with electrical plugs
in mean time the Italians install  the Test satellite and Payload faring...

consequences in this mess
some electrical plugs between stage were  incompatible or worst wrongly wired.
What let to failure during launch.

Coralie needed hot staging to ignite there pressure fed engines   
but launch crew cut off RZ.2 on Blue streak before staging, so Coralie couldn't ignite...
the French put solid rocket motor into Coralie to support ignition

the Europa I rocket was launch remote controlled  in Woomera
since that installation was not transfer to French Space Port
the Europa II rocket was equip with to fragile autopilot.

The Europa II  Failure report by Otto Kayser reads more like death sentence for entire Europa rocket program... 

[woods170]

<snip>
The Europa II  Failure report by Otto Kayser reads more like death sentence for entire Europa rocket program... 

The main lesson-learned from Europa was the need for a strong and central design, construction and test authority. For Arianes 1 - 5 the French space agency CNES was assigned this role, and it was quite successful.