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Scout X-1

U.S. sounding and orbital rocket, 1960-1961

Field	Value
name	Scout X-1
image	Scout X-1 with Explorer 9 Feb 16 1961.JPG
caption	Launch of Explorer 9 on a Scout X-1
upright	1.2
function	Expendable launch system
Sounding rocket
manufacturer	Vought
country-origin	United States
height	25 m
diameter	1.01 m
mass	16240 kg
stages	Four
family	Scout
derivatives	Scout X-1A
Blue Scout I
Blue Scout II
status	Retired
sites	Wallops LA-3
launches	7
success	3
fail	4
first	1960-07-02
last	1961-10-19
type	Stage
stageno	First
name	Algol 1B
engines	1 solid
thrust	471 kN
SI	236 seconds
burntime	40 seconds
fuel	Solid
type	Stage
stageno	Second
name	Castor 1A
engines	1 solid
thrust	286 kN
SI	247 seconds
burntime	27 seconds
fuel	Solid
type	Stage
stageno	Third
name	Antares 1A
engines	1 X-254
thrust	60 kN
SI	256 seconds
burntime	39 seconds
fuel	Solid
type	Stage
stageno	Fourth
name	Altair 1A
engines	1 X-248A
thrust	14 kN
SI	255 seconds
burntime	40 seconds
fuel	Solid

Sounding rocket | country-origin = United States

Blue Scout I Blue Scout II

Scout X-1 was an American expendable launch system and sounding rocket which was flown seven times between August 1960 and October 1961. Four orbital and three suborbital launches were made, with four of the launches resulting in failures.

The Scout X-1 was similar to the Scout X test vehicle which was launched in April 1960, however it had live second and fourth stages, as opposed to the battleship versions used on the Scout X. It also featured an improved first stage, using an Algol 1B instead of the earlier Algol 1A used on the Scout X.

Several derivatives of the Scout X-1 were also flown. The United States Navy developed the Blue Scout, which was a three-stage sounding rocket, and the Blue Scout II which was almost identical to the Scout X-1. The Scout X-1A, a five-stage variant of the Scout X-1, was used for a single suborbital launch in March 1962. It featured an improved first stage, and a NOTS-17 upper stage.

Launches

Scout X-1 was flown seven times between August 1960 and October 1961 from Launch Area 3 at the Wallops Flight Facility.

The maiden flight was a suborbital test of the rocket's systems, and was conducted on 2 July 1960, with the rocket launching at 00:04 GMT. Following this, a suborbital radiation experiment was successfully launched on 4 October 1960. The first orbital launch attempt, with the S-56 satellite, was made on 4 December 1960, and ended in failure after the second stage malfunctioned.

On 16 February 1961, a Scout X-1 successfully placed Explorer 9, a reflight of the failed S-56, into Earth orbit, in the first successful orbital launch to be conducted by a Scout rocket. The next launch attempt on 30 June 1961 carried the S-55 satellite, but this did not reach orbit because the third stage failed to ignite. A reflight of S-55, Explorer 13, was launched on 25 August 1961, but reached a lower than planned orbit, and was unusable. The final flight of the Scout X-1 was made on 19 October 1961, carrying plasma and aeronomy research payloads on a suborbital trajectory. This launch was successful.

Date	Serial	Agency	Apogee (km)	Mission Description
1960 July 2	ST-1	NASA	1380	[[File:Scout ST-1 rocket-02.png	frameless]]
1960 October 4	ST-2	NASA	5600	[[File:Scout ST-2 rocket-02.png	frameless]]
1960 December 4	ST-3	NASA		[[File:Scout rocket assembly.jpg	frameless]]
1961 February 16	ST-4	USAF	2433	[[File:Scout X-1 with Explorer 9 Feb 16 1961 2.JPG	frameless]]
1961 June 30	ST-5	NASA		S-55, failure (third stage did not ignite)
1961 August 25	ST-6	NASA		Explorer 13, partial failure
1961 October 19	ST-7	NASA	6855	P-21 Plasma / aeronomy mission

References

Krebs, Gunter. "Scout-X1".
Wade, Mark. "Scout X-1". Encyclopedia Astronautica.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1960-in-spaceflight 1961-in-spaceflight scout-(rocket-family)

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