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60-599: The first Mu rocket, the Mu-1 made a single, sub-orbital , test flight, on 31 October 1966. Subsequently, a series of rockets were produced, designated Mu-3 and Mu-4 . In 1969 a suborbital test launch of the Mu-3D was conducted. The first orbital launch attempt for the Mu family, using a Mu-4S , was conducted on 25 September 1970, however the fourth stage did not ignite, and the rocket failed to reach orbit. On 16 February 1971, Tansei 1

120-585: A Verne gun because of its appearance in From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne , is a method of launching an object into space using a large gun - or cannon -like structure. Space guns could thus potentially provide a method of non-rocket spacelaunch . It has been conjectured that space guns could place satellites into Earth's orbit (although after-launch propulsion of the satellite would be necessary to achieve

180-411: A is more than R /2. The specific orbital energy ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } is given by: ε = − μ 2 a > − μ R {\displaystyle \varepsilon =-{\mu \over {2a}}>-{\mu \over {R}}\,\!} where μ {\displaystyle \mu \,\!}

240-443: A suborbital spaceflight . However, a space gun has never been successfully used to launch an object into orbit or out of Earth's gravitational pull. The large g-force likely to be experienced by a ballistic projectile launched in this manner would mean that a space gun would be incapable of safely launching humans or delicate instruments, rather being restricted to freight , fuel or ruggedized satellites. A space gun by itself

300-410: A LEO. On a 10,000-kilometer intercontinental flight, such as that of an intercontinental ballistic missile or possible future commercial spaceflight , the maximum speed is about 7 km/s, and the maximum altitude may be more than 1300 km. Any spaceflight that returns to the surface, including sub-orbital ones, will undergo atmospheric reentry . The speed at the start of the reentry is basically

360-471: A crew of two pilots, to an altitude of 200 km (65,000 ft) using captured V-2 . In 2004, a number of companies worked on vehicles in this class as entrants to the Ansari X Prize competition. The Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne was officially declared by Rick Searfoss to have won the competition on October 4, 2004, after completing two flights within a two-week period. In 2005, Sir Richard Branson of

420-402: A distinct boundary between atmospheric flight and spaceflight . During freefall the trajectory is part of an elliptic orbit as given by the orbit equation . The perigee distance is less than the radius of the Earth R including atmosphere, hence the ellipse intersects the Earth, and hence the spacecraft will fail to complete an orbit. The major axis is vertical, the semi-major axis

480-500: A flight is attained at the lowest altitude of this free-fall trajectory, both at the start and at the end of it. If one's goal is simply to "reach space", for example in competing for the Ansari X Prize , horizontal motion is not needed. In this case the lowest required delta-v, to reach 100 km altitude, is about 1.4  km/s . Moving slower, with less free-fall, would require more delta-v. Compare this with orbital spaceflights:

540-511: A lift off from Texas and a simulated soft touchdown in the Indian Ocean 66 minutes after liftoff. Sub-orbital flights can last from just seconds to days. Pioneer 1 was NASA 's first space probe , intended to reach the Moon . A partial failure caused it to instead follow a sub-orbital trajectory, reentering the Earth's atmosphere 43 hours after launch. To calculate the time of flight for

600-482: A low Earth orbit (LEO), with an altitude of about 300 km, needs a speed around 7.7 km/s, requiring a delta-v of about 9.2 km/s. (If there were no atmospheric drag the theoretical minimum delta-v would be 8.1 km/s to put a craft into a 300-kilometer high orbit starting from a stationary point like the South Pole. The theoretical minimum can be up to 0.46 km/s less if launching eastward from near

660-765: A minimum-delta-v trajectory, according to Kepler's third law , the period for the entire orbit (if it did not go through the Earth) would be: period = ( semi-major axis R ) 3 2 × period of low Earth orbit = ( 1 + sin ⁡ θ 2 ) 3 2 2 π R g {\displaystyle {\text{period}}=\left({\frac {\text{semi-major axis}}{R}}\right)^{\frac {3}{2}}\times {\text{period of low Earth orbit}}=\left({\frac {1+\sin \theta }{2}}\right)^{\frac {3}{2}}2\pi {\sqrt {\frac {R}{g}}}} Using Kepler's second law , we multiply this by

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720-522: A more likely future use of space guns would be to launch objects into Low Earth orbit , at which point attached rockets could be fired or the objects could be "collected" by maneuverable orbiting satellites. In Project HARP , a 1960s joint United States and Canada defence project, a U.S. Navy 410 mm (16 in) 100 caliber gun was used to fire a 180 kg (400 lb) projectile at 3,600 m/s (12,960 km/h; 8,050 mph), reaching an apogee of 180 km (110 mi), hence performing

780-478: A quarter of the way around the Earth, and 42 minutes for going halfway around. For short distances, this expression is asymptotic to 2 d / g {\displaystyle {\sqrt {2d/g}}} . From the form involving arccosine, the derivative of the time of flight with respect to d (or θ) goes to zero as d approaches 20 000  km (halfway around the world). The derivative of Δ v also goes to zero here. So if d = 19 000  km ,

840-476: A space gun in its seventh level that is used by the main villain General Styron to launch himself to the Moon. In Hannu Rajaniemi 's 2012 novel The Fractal Prince , a space gun at the "Jannah-of-the-cannon", powered by a 150-kiloton nuclear bomb , is used to launch a spaceship from Earth. The 2015 video game SOMA features a space gun used to launch satellites. Gerald Bull 's assassination and

900-513: A stable orbit), and could also launch spacecraft beyond Earth's gravitational pull and into other parts of the Solar System by exceeding Earth's escape velocity of about 11.20 km/s (40,320 km/h; 25,050 mph). However, these speeds are too far into the hypersonic range for most practical propulsion systems and also would cause most objects to burn up due to aerodynamic heating or be torn apart by aerodynamic drag . Therefore,

960-706: A total launch mass of 137,500 kg (303,100 lb), whilst the total mass of a four-stage M-V KM was 139,000 kg (306,000 lb). All launches are from the Mu Launch Pad at the Uchinoura Space Center . ^Note Two sub-orbital launches of the Mu family were performed prior to its first orbital flight: the 1.5 stage Mu-1 flew on October 31, 1966, at 05:04 UTC and the 3.5 stage Mu-3D flew on August 17, 1969, at 06:00 UTC. Sub-orbital Blue Origin NS-22 A sub-orbital spaceflight

1020-559: Is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space , but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will not become an artificial satellite nor will it reach escape velocity . For example, the path of an object launched from Earth that reaches the Kármán line (about 83 km [52 mi] – 100 km [62 mi] above sea level ), and then falls back to Earth,

1080-432: Is a hypersonic suborbital spaceplane concept that could transport 50 passengers from Australia to Europe in 90 minutes or 100 passengers from Europe to California in 60 minutes. The main challenge lies in increasing the reliability of the different components, particularly the engines, in order to make their use for passenger transportation on a daily basis possible. Space gun A space gun , sometimes called

1140-423: Is as scientific sounding rockets . Scientific sub-orbital flights began in the 1920s when Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid fueled rockets, however they did not reach space altitude. In the late 1940s, captured German V-2 ballistic missiles were converted into V-2 sounding rockets which helped lay the foundation for modern sounding rockets. Today there are dozens of different sounding rockets on

1200-435: Is between 0 and μ 2 R {\displaystyle \mu \over {2R}\,\!} . To minimize the required delta-v (an astrodynamical measure which strongly determines the required fuel ), the high-altitude part of the flight is made with the rockets off (this is technically called free-fall even for the upward part of the trajectory). (Compare with Oberth effect .) The maximum speed in

1260-624: Is considered a sub-orbital spaceflight. Some sub-orbital flights have been undertaken to test spacecraft and launch vehicles later intended for orbital spaceflight . Other vehicles are specifically designed only for sub-orbital flight; examples include crewed vehicles, such as the X-15 and SpaceShipTwo , and uncrewed ones, such as ICBMs and sounding rockets . Flights which attain sufficient velocity to go into low Earth orbit , and then de-orbit before completing their first full orbit, are not considered sub-orbital. Examples of this include flights of

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1320-468: Is defined as a missile that can hit a target at least 5500 km away, and according to the above formula this requires an initial speed of 6.1 km/s. Increasing the speed to 7.9 km/s to attain any point on Earth requires a considerably larger missile because the amount of fuel needed goes up exponentially with delta-v (see Rocket equation ). The initial direction of a minimum-delta-v trajectory points halfway between straight up and straight toward

1380-1134: Is maximized (at about 1320 km) for a trajectory going one quarter of the way around the Earth ( 10 000  km ). Longer ranges will have lower apogees in the minimal-delta-v solution. specific kinetic energy at launch = μ R − μ major axis = μ R sin ⁡ θ 1 + sin ⁡ θ {\displaystyle {\text{specific kinetic energy at launch}}={\frac {\mu }{R}}-{\frac {\mu }{\text{major axis}}}={\frac {\mu }{R}}{\frac {\sin \theta }{1+\sin \theta }}} Δ v = speed at launch = 2 μ R sin ⁡ θ 1 + sin ⁡ θ = 2 g R sin ⁡ θ 1 + sin ⁡ θ {\displaystyle \Delta v={\text{speed at launch}}={\sqrt {2{\frac {\mu }{R}}{\frac {\sin \theta }{1+\sin \theta }}}}={\sqrt {2gR{\frac {\sin \theta }{1+\sin \theta }}}}} (where g

1440-479: Is more than 100 g-forces , which is about 3 times the human tolerance to g-forces of maximum 20 to 35 g during the ~10 seconds such a firing would take.This calculation does not take into account the decreasing escape velocity at higher altitudes. The German V-3 cannon program, during World War II was an attempt to build something approaching a space gun. Based in the Pas-de-Calais area of France it

1500-405: Is not capable of placing objects into a stable orbit around the object (planet or otherwise) they are launched from. The orbit is a parabolic orbit , a hyperbolic orbit , or part of an elliptic orbit which ends at the planet's surface at the point of launch or another point. This means that an uncorrected ballistic payload will always strike the planet within its first orbit unless the velocity

1560-425: Is similar to an ICBM. ICBMs have delta-v's somewhat less than orbital; and therefore would be somewhat cheaper than the costs for reaching orbit, but the difference is not large. Due to the high cost of spaceflight, suborbital flights are likely to be initially limited to high value, very high urgency cargo deliveries such as courier flights, military fast-response operations or space tourism . The SpaceLiner

1620-412: Is the standard gravitational parameter . Almost always a < R , corresponding to a lower ϵ {\displaystyle \epsilon } than the minimum for a full orbit, which is − μ 2 R {\displaystyle -{\mu \over {2R}}\,\!} Thus the net extra specific energy needed compared to just raising the spacecraft into space

1680-447: Is the acceleration of gravity at the Earth's surface). The Δ v increases with range, leveling off at 7.9 km/s as the range approaches 20 000  km (halfway around the world). The minimum-delta-v trajectory for going halfway around the world corresponds to a circular orbit just above the surface (of course in reality it would have to be above the atmosphere). See lower for the time of flight. An intercontinental ballistic missile

1740-516: The Earth's crust and the troposphere , totalling ~60 km (37 miles) of length ( l {\displaystyle l} ), and a velocity ( v e {\displaystyle v_{e}} ) enough to escape the Earth's gravity ( escape velocity , which is 11.2 km/s or 25,000 mph on Earth), the acceleration ( a {\displaystyle a} ) would theoretically be more than 1,000 m/s (3,300 ft/s ), which

1800-554: The Fractional Orbital Bombardment System . A flight that does not reach space is still sometimes called sub-orbital, but cannot officially be classified as a "sub-orbital spaceflight". Usually a rocket is used, but some experimental sub-orbital spaceflights have also been achieved via the use of space guns . By definition, a sub-orbital spaceflight reaches an altitude higher than 100 km (62 mi) above sea level . This altitude, known as

1860-536: The Hayabusa (MUSES-C) spacecraft in 2003. The three-stage configuration had a maximum payload of 1,800 kg (4,000 lb) for an orbit with altitude of 200 km (120 mi) and inclination of 30°, and 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) to a polar orbit (90° inclination), with an altitude of 200 km (120 mi). The M-V KM could launch 1,800 kg (4,000 lb) to an orbit with 30° inclination and 400 km (250 mi) altitude. The three stage M-V had

Mu (rocket family) - Misplaced Pages Continue

1920-519: The Project Babylon gun were also the starting point for Frederick Forsyth 's 1994 novel The Fist of God . In Larry Bond 's 2001 novella and 2015 novel Lash-Up , China uses a space gun to destroy American GPS satellites. In the 2004 role-playing game Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door , a village of Bob-ombs operates a space gun to send Paper Mario and company to the X-Naut's base on

1980-475: The StarTram Generation 1 reference design involves a total of 0.6 km/s (1,300 mph) of rocket burn to raise perigee well above the atmosphere when entering an 8 km/s (18,000 mph) low Earth orbit . In a three-body or larger system, a gravity assist trajectory might be available such that a carefully aimed escape velocity projectile would have its trajectory modified by

2040-461: The V-2 rocket , just reaching space but with a range of about 330 km, the maximum speed was 1.6 km/s. Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo which is under development will have a similar free-fall orbit but the announced maximum speed is 1.1 km/s (perhaps because of engine shut-off at a higher altitude). For larger ranges, due to the elliptic orbit the maximum altitude can be much more than for

2100-656: The Virgin Group announced the creation of Virgin Galactic and his plans for a 9-seat capacity SpaceShipTwo named VSS Enterprise . It has since been completed with eight seats (one pilot, one co-pilot and six passengers) and has taken part in captive-carry tests and with the first mother-ship WhiteKnightTwo , or VMS Eve . It has also completed solitary glides, with the movable tail sections in both fixed and "feathered" configurations. The hybrid rocket motor has been fired multiple times in ground-based test stands, and

2160-464: The flight phases before and after the free-fall can vary. For an intercontinental flight the boost phase takes 3 to 5 minutes, the free-fall (midcourse phase) about 25 minutes. For an ICBM the atmospheric reentry phase takes about 2 minutes; this will be longer for any soft landing, such as for a possible future commercial flight. Test flight 4 of the SpaceX 'Starship' performed such a flight with

2220-453: The 1980s. Developed at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory , it is a light-gas gun and has been used to test fire objects at Mach 9 . The most prominent recent attempt to make a space gun was artillery engineer Gerald Bull 's Project Babylon , which was also known as the 'Iraqi supergun' by the media. During Project Babylon, Bull used his experience from Project HARP to build a massive cannon for Saddam Hussein , leader of Ba'athist Iraq . Bull

2280-558: The Kármán line, was chosen by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale because it is roughly the point where a vehicle flying fast enough to support itself with aerodynamic lift from the Earth's atmosphere would be flying faster than orbital speed . The US military and NASA award astronaut wings to those flying above 50 mi (80 km), although the U.S. State Department does not show

2340-516: The Moon (loosely interpreted into the 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune ), in which astronauts fly to the Moon aboard a ship launched from a cannon. Another famous example is used by the Martians to launch their invasion in H. G. Wells ' 1897 book The War of the Worlds . Wells also used the concept in the climax of the 1936 film Things to Come . In one of the first Polish Sci-Fi novels, On

2400-512: The Silver Globe by Andrzej Żuławski , published in 1903, astronauts are launched to the Moon using a space gun. The device was featured in films as late as 1967, such as Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon . In the 1991 video game Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams , Percival Lowell builds a space gun to send a spacecraft to Mars . The 1992 video game Steel Empire , a shoot 'em up with steampunk aesthetics, features

2460-434: The altitude of launch after one orbit (see Newton's cannonball ). For a space gun with a gun barrel of length ( l {\displaystyle l} ), and the needed velocity ( v e {\displaystyle v_{e}} ), the acceleration ( a {\displaystyle a} ) is provided by the following formula: For instance, with a space gun with a vertical "gun barrel" through both

Mu (rocket family) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2520-406: The altitude required to qualify as reaching space. The flight path will be either vertical or very steep, with the spacecraft landing back at its take-off site. The spacecraft will shut off its engines well before reaching maximum altitude, and then coast up to its highest point. During a few minutes, from the point when the engines are shut off to the point where the atmosphere begins to slow down

2580-402: The angle that the projectile is to go around the Earth, so in degrees it is 45°× d / 10 000  km . The minimum-delta-v trajectory corresponds to an ellipse with one focus at the centre of the Earth and the other at the point halfway between the launch point and the destination point (somewhere inside the Earth). (This is the orbit that minimizes the semi-major axis, which is equal to the sum of

2640-473: The destination point (which is below the horizon). Again, this is the case if the Earth's rotation is ignored. It is not exactly true for a rotating planet unless the launch takes place at a pole. In a vertical flight of not too high altitudes, the time of the free-fall is both for the upward and for the downward part the maximum speed divided by the acceleration of gravity , so with a maximum speed of 1 km/s together 3 minutes and 20 seconds. The duration of

2700-1764: The distances from a point on the orbit to the two foci. Minimizing the semi-major axis minimizes the specific orbital energy and thus the delta-v, which is the speed of launch.) Geometrical arguments lead then to the following (with R being the radius of the Earth, about 6370 km): major axis = ( 1 + sin ⁡ θ ) R {\displaystyle {\text{major axis}}=(1+\sin \theta )R} minor axis = R 2 ( sin ⁡ θ + sin 2 ⁡ θ ) = R sin ⁡ ( θ ) semi-major axis {\displaystyle {\text{minor axis}}=R{\sqrt {2\left(\sin \theta +\sin ^{2}\theta \right)}}={\sqrt {R\sin(\theta ){\text{semi-major axis}}}}} distance of apogee from centre of Earth = R 2 ( 1 + sin ⁡ θ + cos ⁡ θ ) {\displaystyle {\text{distance of apogee from centre of Earth}}={\frac {R}{2}}(1+\sin \theta +\cos \theta )} altitude of apogee above surface = ( sin ⁡ θ 2 − sin 2 ⁡ θ 2 ) R = ( 1 2 sin ⁡ ( θ + π 4 ) − 1 2 ) R {\displaystyle {\text{altitude of apogee above surface}}=\left({\frac {\sin \theta }{2}}-\sin ^{2}{\frac {\theta }{2}}\right)R=\left({\frac {1}{\sqrt {2}}}\sin \left(\theta +{\frac {\pi }{4}}\right)-{\frac {1}{2}}\right)R} The altitude of apogee

2760-572: The downward acceleration, the passengers will experience weightlessness . Megaroc had been planned for sub-orbital spaceflight by the British Interplanetary Society in the 1940s. In late 1945, a group led by M. Tikhonravov K. and N. G. Chernysheva at the Soviet NII-4 academy (dedicated to rocket artillery science and technology), began work on a stratospheric rocket project, VR-190 , aimed at vertical flight by

2820-498: The equator.) For sub-orbital spaceflights covering a horizontal distance the maximum speed and required delta-v are in between those of a vertical flight and a LEO. The maximum speed at the lower ends of the trajectory are now composed of a horizontal and a vertical component. The higher the horizontal distance covered, the greater the horizontal speed will be. (The vertical velocity will increase with distance for short distances but will decrease with distance at longer distances.) For

2880-399: The gravitational fields of other bodies in the system such that the projectile would eventually return to orbit the initial planet using only the launch delta-v . Isaac Newton avoided this objection in his thought experiment by placing his notional cannon atop a tall mountain and positing negligible air resistance. If in a stable orbit, the projectile would circle the planet and return to

2940-475: The length of the minimum-delta-v trajectory will be about 19 500  km , but it will take only a few seconds less time than the trajectory for d = 20 000  km (for which the trajectory is 20 000  km long). While there are a great many possible sub-orbital flight profiles, it is expected that some will be more common than others. The first sub-orbital vehicles which reached space were ballistic missiles . The first ballistic missile to reach space

3000-478: The market, from a variety of suppliers in various countries. Typically, researchers wish to conduct experiments in microgravity or above the atmosphere. Research, such as that done for the X-20 Dyna-Soar project suggests that a semi-ballistic sub-orbital flight could travel from Europe to North America in less than an hour. However, the size of rocket, relative to the payload, necessary to achieve this,

3060-445: The maximum speed of the flight. The aerodynamic heating caused will vary accordingly: it is much less for a flight with a maximum speed of only 1 km/s than for one with a maximum speed of 7 or 8 km/s. The minimum delta-v and the corresponding maximum altitude for a given range can be calculated, d , assuming a spherical Earth of circumference 40 000  km and neglecting the Earth's rotation and atmosphere. Let θ be half

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3120-570: The payload, such as coilguns and railguns . The first publication of the concept may be Newton's cannonball in his 1728 book A Treatise of the System of the World , although it was primarily used as a thought experiment regarding gravity. Perhaps the most famous representations of a space gun appear in Jules Verne 's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon and his 1869 novel Around

3180-1946: The portion of the area of the ellipse swept by the line from the centre of the Earth to the projectile: area fraction = 1 π arcsin ⁡ 2 sin ⁡ θ 1 + sin ⁡ θ + 2 cos ⁡ θ sin ⁡ θ π (major axis)(minor axis) {\displaystyle {\text{area fraction}}={\frac {1}{\pi }}\arcsin {\sqrt {\frac {2\sin \theta }{1+\sin \theta }}}+{\frac {2\cos \theta \sin \theta }{\pi {\text{(major axis)(minor axis)}}}}} time of flight = ( ( 1 + sin ⁡ θ 2 ) 3 2 arcsin ⁡ 2 sin ⁡ θ 1 + sin ⁡ θ + 1 2 cos ⁡ θ sin ⁡ θ ) 2 R g = ( ( 1 + sin ⁡ θ 2 ) 3 2 arccos ⁡ cos ⁡ θ 1 + sin ⁡ θ + 1 2 cos ⁡ θ sin ⁡ θ ) 2 R g {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}{\text{time of flight}}&=\left(\left({\frac {1+\sin \theta }{2}}\right)^{\frac {3}{2}}\arcsin {\sqrt {\frac {2\sin \theta }{1+\sin \theta }}}+{\frac {1}{2}}\cos \theta {\sqrt {\sin \theta }}\right)2{\sqrt {\frac {R}{g}}}\\&=\left(\left({\frac {1+\sin \theta }{2}}\right)^{\frac {3}{2}}\arccos {\frac {\cos \theta }{1+\sin \theta }}+{\frac {1}{2}}\cos \theta {\sqrt {\sin \theta }}\right)2{\sqrt {\frac {R}{g}}}\\\end{aligned}}} This gives about 32 minutes for going

3240-640: Was assassinated before the project was completed. After cancellation of SHARP, lead developer John Hunter founded the Jules Verne Launcher Company in 1996 and the Quicklaunch company. As of September 2012, Quicklaunch was seeking to raise $ 500 million to build a gun that could refuel a propellant depot or send bulk materials into space. Ram accelerators have also been proposed as an alternative to light-gas guns. Other proposals use electromagnetic techniques for accelerating

3300-492: Was fired in a powered flight for the second time on 5 September 2013. Four additional SpaceShipTwos have been ordered and will operate from the new Spaceport America . Commercial flights carrying passengers were expected in 2014, but became cancelled due to the disaster during SS2 PF04 flight . Branson stated, "[w]e are going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance and then move forwards together." A major use of sub-orbital vehicles today

3360-616: Was launched by another Mu-4S rocket. Two further Mu-4S launches took place during 1971 and 1972. The Mu-4S was replaced by the Mu-3C, was launched four times between 1974 and 1979, with three successes and one failure, and the Mu-3H, which was launched three times in 1977 and 1978. The Mu-3S was used between 1980 and 1984, making four launches. The final member of the Mu-3 family was the Mu-3SII, which

3420-593: Was launched eight times between 1985 and 1995. The Mu-3 was replaced in service by the M-V . The M-V , or Mu-5, was introduced in 1997 and retired in 2006. Seven launches, six of which were successful, were conducted. Typically, the M-V flew in a three-stage configuration, however a four-stage configuration, designated M-V KM was used 3 times, with the MUSES-B (HALCA) satellite in 1997, Nozomi (PLANET-B) spacecraft in 1998, and

3480-564: Was planned to be more devastating than the other Nazi ' Vengeance weapons '. The cannon was capable of launching 140 kg (310 lb), 15 cm (5.9 in) diameter shells over a distance of 88 km (55 mi). It was destroyed by RAF bombing using Tallboy blockbuster bombs in July 1944. The US Ballistic Missile Defense program sponsored the Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) in

3540-409: Was so high as to reach or exceed escape velocity . As a result, all payloads intended to reach a closed orbit need at least to perform some sort of course correction to create another orbit that does not intersect the planet's surface. A rocket can be used for additional boost, as planned in both Project HARP and the Quicklaunch project. The magnitude of such correction may be small; for instance,

3600-688: Was the German V-2 , the work of the scientists at Peenemünde , on October 3, 1942, which reached an altitude of 53 miles (85 km). Then in the late 1940s the US and USSR concurrently developed missiles all of which were based on the V-2 Rocket, and then much longer range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). There are now many countries who possess ICBMs and even more with shorter range Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs). Sub-orbital tourist flights will initially focus on attaining

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