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Diamant
The Diamant rocket (French for "diamond") was the first exclusively French expendable launch system and at the same time the first satellite launcher not built by either the United States or USSR. As such, it has been referred to as being a key predecessor for all subsequent European launcher projects. The head of the project, Charley Attali, received the Legion of Honour in 1965 for the Diamant. During 1962, development of the Diamant commenced as the inaugural spacecraft project of France's space agency, the CNES, Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES). As a project, it was derived from the military program ''pierres précieuses'' (fr.: gemstones) that included the five prototypes Agate (rocket), Agate, Topaze (rocket), Topaze, Emeraude (rocket), Emeraude, Rubis (rocket), Rubis and Saphir (rocket), Saphir (Agate, Topaz, Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire), and drew heavily upon the knowledge and technologies that had been previously developed. On 26 November 1965, the Diamant A pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guiana Space Centre
The Guiana Space Centre (; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximately north of the equator at a latitude of 5°. In operation since 1968, it is a suitable location for a spaceport because of its near equatorial location and open sea to the east and north. At CSG, space launches are conducted by several European private companies and government agencies working together. The CSG land itself is managed by CNES, the French national space agency. The launch infrastructure built on the CSG land is owned by the European Space Agency. The private company Arianespace operates the launches including planning missions, handling customer relationships and overseeing the team at CSG that integrates and prepares vehicles for launch. The rockets themselves are designed and produced by other companies, ArianeGroup f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charley Attali
Charley Shalom Attali (; sometimes misspelled as Charles Chalom Attali; 1930–2006) was an Algerian-born French-Israeli aerospace engineer. Early life and education Attali was born in Constantine, Algeria to a Jewish family. Upon graduating high school at age 16 after skipping a grade, he was sent to study at École nationale de l'aviation civile in France, where he excelled and graduated as an engineer. Early career After completing his studies in 1952, Attali was initially employed at Sud Aviation, before eventually working for SEREB on developing ballistic missiles. While at SEREB, Attali was appointed by French president Charles de Gaulle to lead the Diamant project. Due to the success of Diamant, Attali was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1965 by Charles de Gaulle. After the Diamant project, Attali was placed in charge of France's role in the Europa-1 rocket. Move to Israel In 1969 Moshe Arens, who served as vice-president of the IAI, secretly flew to Paris to meet w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topaze (rocket)
Topaze (Véhicule Expérimental 111 Topaze) is the designation of a French sounding rocket. The Topaze was developed by several French companies, notably Nord Aviation and Sud Aviation, and built by SEREB (a joint venture of Nord and Sud, now known as Aérospatiale) and was the first guidable French sounding rocket. It was part of the ''Pierres précieuses'' (fr.: gemstones) program, that included five prototypes Agathe, Topaze, Emeraude, Rubis and Saphir, leading up to the Diamant orbital rocket. The name indicates that it is a "Véhicule Expérimental" (Experimental Vehicle) with 1 stage, using solid propulsion (code 1), and guided (code 1). The Topaze was launched 14 times from the CIEES launch site in Hammaguir (Hammaguira Bacchus pad), Algeria, by ONERA. Versions There were three versions of the Topaze: File:VE 111 C Topaze.svg, VE111C File:VE 111 L Topaze.svg, VE111L File:VE 111 LG Topaze.svg, VE111LG Topaze VE111 / Topaze VE111C Details * payload mass: 410 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agate (rocket)
VE 110 Agate is the designation of an unguided French test rocket developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was part of the ''Pierres précieuses'' (fr.: gemstones) program, that included five prototypes Agathe, Topaze, Emeraude, Rubis and Saphir, leading up to the Diamant orbital rocket. The Agate has a length of 8.50 metres, a diameter of 0.80 metres, a start mass of 3.2 tonnes, a takeoff thrust of 186 kN and a ceiling of 20 km. It used a ''NA801 Mammouth'' solid propellant rocket engine (same as the Rubis VE-210). The initial version was designated VE (Véhicule Expérimental) 110, while the VE 110RR version was used to develop recovery procedures at sea. The name indicates that it is a "Véhicule Expérimental" (Experimental Vehicle) with 1 stage, using solid propulsion (code 1), and not guided (code 0). File:PierrePrecieusesf.png, Military space program Pierres précieuses (fr.: gemstones) that included the five prototypes Agathe, Topaze, Emeraude, Rubis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saphir (rocket)
VE 231 Saphir (French, meaning ''sapphire'') was a French two stage sounding rocket. It was part of the ''pierres précieuses'' (fr.: gemstones) program, that included five prototypes Agathe, Topaze, Emeraude, Rubis and Saphir, leading up to the Diamant orbital rocket. Its codename, VE 231, indicates that it is a "Véhicule Expérimental" (Experimental Vehicle) with 2 stages, using liquid and solid propellant (code 3), and guided (code 1). Saphir was used between 1965 and 1967 and had a payload capacity of . The rocket could reach a maximum altitude of and produced thrust of at launch. Saphir had a launch mass of , a diameter of and a length of . Saphir variants were designed to allow testing of radio-controlled guidance (VE231P), inertial guidance (VE231G), and warhead separation and ablative heat shielding of a re-entry vehicle (VE231R). The Diamant rocket, which carried the first French satellite, Asterix-1, into orbit, was developed from the Saphir with the additi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CNES
CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Space Centre and the Guiana Space Centre. The president of CNES is Philippe Baptiste. CNES is a member of Institute of Space, its Applications and Technologies. It is Europe's largest national organization of its type. History CNES was established under President Charles de Gaulle in 1961. It is the world's third oldest space agency, after the Soviet space program (Russia), and NASA (United States). CNES was responsible for the training of French astronauts, until the last active CNES astronauts transferred to the European Space Agency in 2001. , CNES is working with Germany and a few other governments to start a modest research effort with the hope to propose a LOX/methane reusable launch vehicle by mid-2015. If built, flight testing w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubis (rocket)
The VE 210 Rubis (French, meaning ruby) was a French two-stage rocket. It was part of the ''pierres précieuses'' (fr.: gemstones) program, that included five prototypes Agathe, Topaze, Emeraude, Rubis and Saphir, leading up to the Diamant orbital rocket. Its codename, VE210, indicates that it is a "Véhicule Expérimental" (Experimental Vehicle) with 2 stages, using solid propellant (code 1), and not guided (code 0). The rocket was used to test technologies used in the Diamant, as well as to launch scientific instruments from the Paris Observatory and Max Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M .... Description Rubis used an ''NA801 Mammouth'' engine (similar to Agate (rocket), Agate) for its first stage and a ''P064'' engine for its second stage. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insoluble in water. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of carbon at Standard temperature and pressure, room temperature and pressure, but diamond is metastable and converts to it at a negligible rate under those conditions. Diamond has the highest Scratch hardness, hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are used in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. Because the arrangement of atoms in diamond is extremely rigid, few types of impurity can contaminate it (two exceptions are boron and nitrogen). Small numbers of lattice defect, defects or impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) can color ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Satellite
A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scientific research, and Earth observation. Additional military uses are reconnaissance, early warning, signals intelligence and, potentially, weapon delivery. Other satellites include the final rocket stages that place satellites in orbit and formerly useful satellites that later become defunct. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). Most satellites also have a method of communication to ground stations, called transponders. Many satellites use a standardized bus to save cost and work, the most popular of which are small CubeSats. Similar satellites can work together as groups, forming constellatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gemstones
A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, semiprecious stone, or simply gem) is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. Certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, and obsidian) and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals (such as amber, jet, and pearl) may also be used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some softer minerals such as brazilianite may be used in jewelry because of their color or luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. However, generally speaking, soft minerals are not typically used as gemstones by virtue of their brittleness and lack of durability. Found all over the world, the industry of coloured gemstones (i.e. anything other than diamonds) is currently estimated at US$1.55billion and is projected to steadily increase to a value of $4.46billion by 2033. A gem expert is a gemo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emeraude (rocket)
VE 121 Émeraude (French for "emerald") was a large French sounding rocket of the 1960s. It built on the experiences of the Véronique and Vesta programs, and though it was only used for one year, it tested important technologies that were used in later French launch vehicles. It was part of the ''pierres précieuses'' (fr.: gemstones) program, that included five prototypes Agathe, Topaze, Emeraude, Rubis and Saphir, leading up to the Diamant orbital rocket. The rocket was liquid-fueled and carried 12.8 tonnes of fuel and oxidizer—nitric acid and gasoline turpentine—which were pressure-fed into the Vexin-B engine, providing a total of 301.55 kN of thrust. Pitch and yaw control were provided by gimbaling the engine while roll control was provided by aerodynamic fins. The rocket could carry a payload to an altitude of 200 km. Its codename, VE121, indicates that it is a "Véhicule Expérimental" (Experimental Vehicle) with 1 stage, using liquid propellant (code 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agate
Agate ( ) is a banded variety of chalcedony. Agate stones are characterized by alternating bands of different colored chalcedony and sometimes include macroscopic quartz. They are common in nature and can be found globally in a large number of different varieties. There are some varieties of chalcedony without bands that are commonly called agate ( moss agate, fire agate, etc.); however, these are more properly classified solely as varieties of chalcedony. Agates are primarily formed as nodules within volcanic rock, but they can also form in veins or in sedimentary rock. Agate has been popular as a gemstone in jewelry for thousands of years, and today it is also popular as a collector's stone. Some duller agates sold commercially are artificially dyed to enhance their color. Etymology Agate was given its name by Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher and naturalist. He discovered the stone c. 350 BCE along the shoreline of the River Achates (), now the Dirillo River, on the Italian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
