Agate is the designation of an unguided French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 test rocket

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

. The Agate has a length of 8.50 meters, a diameter of 0.80 meters, a start mass of 3.2 tonnes, a takeoff thrust

Thrust

Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's second and third laws. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction on that system....

 of 186 kN and a ceiling of 20 km. The Agate was launched from the Hammaguir

Hammaguir

Hammaguir is a town in Algeria, south-west of Béchar. Between 1947 and 1967 there was a rocket launch site near Hammaguir, used by France for launching sounding rockets and the satellite carrier "Diamant" between 1965 and 1967....

 and Ile de Levant test sites, in order to test instrument capsules and recovery systems.