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Old 11-16-2017, 03:49 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Default Gun-launched SLVs (links)

Hello All,

Yesterday I received a copy of a book that I’d ordered from AbeBooks.com, and to my surprise, it contained material on then-planned gun-launched satellite launch vehicles (which today’s technology would make even more feasible; one of them even had a CubeSat-like payload capability [2 kilograms]). Links to websites about them are included below. (Scale models of them--they had MK4-, MK40-, and early Zuni FFAR [Folding-Fin Aircraft Rocket]-type folding first stage fins--could be launched from tube "gun" launchers under rocket power.) Also:

I found recent reports on new studies of gun-launched satellite launch vehicles (links to them are also included below). The following passage (with two references) is reproduced from pages 257, 258, and 268 of the NASA book SP-133, “Scientific Satellites” by William R. Corliss (published by the U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1967):

***********************
Gun Launchers.—For several years, the United States and Canadian Governments have been jointly funding a program investigating the capabilities of large guns for launching high-altitude probes and satellites. The High Altitude Research Project (HARP) is the major effort. HARP is conducted by McGill University and the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratories. [Page 257 has a photograph of a HARP gun; its caption says, “FIGURE 8-11.—A rebored, 16-inch Navy cannon used for firing high-altitude research probes from Barbados Island, B.W.I. Small satellites could also be launched with such a gun.”]

Under HARP, many small Martlet probes have been fired to altitudes above 200 kilometers with 5- and 7-inch guns. The guns, in essence, serve as the (reusable) first stage of the launch vehicle. Small solid rockets within the projectile accelerate the probe and its contained instruments to its final velocity. [Page 258 has a drawing of the upper two stages of a studied design for a three-(rocket) stage, gun-launched satellite launch vehicle; its caption says, “FIGURE 8-12.—Second and third stages of a gun-launched satellite-carrying projectile. The first stage (not shown) consists of a solid rocket and (“and” should be “with,” or “having”) fins that deploy once the projectile is clear of the gun. Diameter is roughly 40 centimeters (16 in.) (ref. 6).”] While guns were considered for satellite launching early in the Space Age (ref. 5), they never attracted much serious attention until the obvious successes of the HARP program came along. Now, satellite launchings are being planned using a rebored 16-inch, World War I Navy cannon, presently set up on the island of Barbados (fig. 8-11). A possible projectile design is presented in figure 8-12 (ref. 6). If satellite components are found capable of withstanding the 150-g acceleration of a gun launch, a new, economical way of propelling small satellites into orbit may be in the offing. The upper limit to the size of such satellites would be about 50 kilograms, unless larger-bore cannons can be acquired.

References [refs. 5 and 6, which pertain to gun-launched satellites]

5. STOIKO, M.; AND DORSEY, J. W.: “Rocket Catapult Facts and Fables.” Astronautics, vol. 5, July 1960, p. 30.

6. BRUCKNER, A. P.: “A Gun-Launched Satellite.” McGill Engineer, Dec. 1964. (Also in Spaceflight, vol. 7, July 1965, p. 118.) The website links are below; they are:
***********************

“A Brief History of the HARP Project” (including material on the Martlet rocket projectiles): http://www.astronautix.com/a/abrief...arpproject.html

"Catapult Launch Assist for Earth To Orbit Launch Vehicles" (see: http://www.launch-systems.com/uploa...orld%20Gun.docx [and the fifth link *here*: http://www.google.com/search?source.....0.EJvxnrIZu3I ])

“Project HARP” videos (see: http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...=harp+gun+video and http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...+harp+space+gun )

“Martlet” family of gun-launched Project HARP rocket vehicles (see: http://www.astronautix.com/m/martlet.html ), including the Martlet 4 (see: http://www.astronautix.com/m/martlet4.html ), GLO-1B (see: http://www.astronautix.com/g/glo-1b.html ), and Martlet 2G-1 (it had a 2-kilogram payload to orbit, see: http://www.astronautix.com/m/martlet2g-1.html ) gun-launched satellite launch vehicles.

“Project HARP” Google website citations list (see: http://www.google.com/search?ei=rT4...1.0.y0Dp-MDkRI8 )

“Gun-Launched Satellites” (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory): http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/td/td2003/gilreath.pdf (here are other related links from that Google websites citation page: http://www.google.com/search?source...1.0.JrqzGbInB5s )

I hope this material will be useful.
__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
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Last edited by blackshire : 11-16-2017 at 04:15 AM.
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