Astrobee is the designation of series of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sounding rocket

Sounding rocket

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...

s with 1 - 3 stages. Several versions were realized.

The three-stage Astrobee 500 (first stage: Genius, second stage: Alcor, third stage: Asp

Asp (rocket)

Asp is the designation of an American sounding rocket. Between 1955 and 1962 these were used 30 times to study the explosion clouds of nuclear bombs....

) has a ceiling of 1000 km, a takeoff

Takeoff

Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle goes from the ground to flying in the air.For horizontal takeoff aircraft this usually involves starting with a transition from moving along the ground on a runway. For balloons, helicopters and some specialized fixed-wing aircraft , no...

 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 161 kN, a takeoff weight

Weight

In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude , often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus:...

 of 900 kg, a diameter

Diameter

In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...

of 0.38 m and a length of 7.80 m.

The three-stage Astrobee 1500 (first stage: Recruit, second stage: Aero jet, third stage: Alcor) has a ceiling of 1000 km, a takeoff thrust of 566 kN, a takeoff weight of 5200 kg, a diameter of 0.79 m and a length of 10.40 m.

The two-stage Astrobee 200 (first stage: Genius, second stage: Alcor) has a ceiling of 350 km, a takeoff thrust of 161 kN, a takeoff weight of 800 kg, a diameter of 0.38 m and a length of 6.30 m.

The single-stage Astrobee D has a ceiling of 140 km, a takeoff thrust of 23.00 kN, a takeoff weight of 100 kg, a diameter of 0.15 m and a length of 3.90 m.

The single-stage Astrobee F has a ceiling of 375 km, a takeoff thrust of 178.00 kN, a takeoff weight of 1500 kg, a diameter of 0.38 m and a length of 11.50 m.

External links

• http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/astee500.htm
• http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/aste1500.htm
• http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/astee200.htm
• http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/astobeed.htm
• http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/astobeef.htm