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The Black Brant is a family of Canadian-designed
sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to ...
s originally built by
Bristol Aerospace Bristol Aerospace is a Canadian aerospace firm located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is an operating division of Magellan Aerospace. Today it is the only remaining and surviving subsidiary of Bristol Aeroplane Company. History Bristol Aerospace ...
, since absorbed by
Magellan Aerospace Magellan Aerospace Corporation is a Canadian manufacturer of aerospace systems and components. Magellan also repairs and overhauls, tests, and provides aftermarket support services for engines, and engine structural components. The company's busin ...
in
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,60 ...
, Manitoba. Over 800 Black Brants of various versions have been launched since they were first produced in 1961, and the type remains one of the most popular sounding rockets. They have been repeatedly used by the Canadian Space Agency and NASA.


History

Black Brant was the result of research at Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment (CARDE) during the 1950s into the nature of the upper part of the
atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
as part of ongoing research into
anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear, chemical, biological, or conventional warheads in a ballistic flight traje ...
systems and very-long-range communication. In 1957 CARDE contracted Bristol to produce a simple
rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely f ...
fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft ...
, called the Propulsion Test Vehicle, for studies into high-power
solid fuel Solid fuel refers to various forms of solid material that can be burnt to release energy, providing heat and light through the process of combustion. Solid fuels can be contrasted with liquid fuels and gaseous fuels. Common examples of solid fuels ...
s. The resulting design, by Albert Fia, was quite heavy, as it was designed to be able to accommodate a wide variety of engine burning times, propellant loadings and launch angles in keeping with its role as a test vehicle for ABM systems development. The first test flight took place only two years later from the Churchill Rocket Research Range in September 1959. CARDE's attention later turned to long-distance communications and they found the ''Propulsion Test Vehicle'' system useful as a
sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to ...
. To better suit this role, Bristol modified the design to be lighter and more tailored to the sounding rocket role. This became the Black Brant. CARDE launched a number of Black Brant rockets over the next few years, both the original ''Black Brant I'' design which could place a payload to altitude, as well as the larger ' which first flew in October 1960, and the smaller but higher-altitude '. The rocket's design emphasized reliability over payload and range. In July 1963 the much larger ' first flew, which was also used as a booster stage for the ' to make the '. The IV first flew in 1964, but failed, as did the next test launch. Aside from these two launches, which were corrected for, the has never had another failure, making it one of the most reliable rockets in history. Since then it has undergone continual evolution, and the current versions are the XI and XII, consisting of used as an upper stage, with
Talos In Greek mythology, Talos — also spelled Talus (; el, Τάλως, ''Tálōs'') or Talon (; el, Τάλων, ''Tálōn'') — was a giant automaton made of bronze to protect Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders. He circled the island's s ...
and
Terrier Terrier (from Latin ''terra'', 'earth') is a type of dog originally bred to hunt vermin. A terrier is a dog of any one of many breeds or landraces of the terrier type, which are typically small, wiry, game, and fearless. Terrier breeds vary g ...
boosters as lower stages. They have reached altitudes of more than , which is above the
ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an im ...
and well above the orbits of the
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program nam ...
and the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...
. The propellant designs developed by CARDE in the program were the highest performing solid fuels of their day. Bristol then placed this propellant in a new rocket to form the
CRV7 The CRV7, short for "Canadian Rocket Vehicle 7", is a 2.75-inch (70 mm) folding-fin ground attack rocket produced by Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was introduced in the early 1970s as an upgraded version of the standard U.S. 2. ...
, the first rocket capable of penetrating standard
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
aircraft hangars. The CRV7 has since gone on to become the de facto standard rocket for most Western-aligned militaries. In 1976, Australia and Canada through the
National Research Council Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...
(NRCC) agreed to launch a rocket from
Woomera Test Range The RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC) is a major Australian military and civil aerospace facility and operation located in South Australia, approximately north-west of Adelaide. The WRC is operated by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), a d ...
. The rocket was launched there on 9 November for experiments in the ionosphere. Later NASA would launch a number of . At present, due to its 98% success rate, it remains one of the most popular sounding rockets ever built. The rockets have been used repeatedly by the Canadian Space Agency and NASA. There is a 1:1 scale model of the rocket in front of the head office of the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert, east of
Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...
. A full-scale is on display in the Science Gallery of The
Manitoba Museum The Manitoba Museum, previously the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, is a human and natural history museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as well as the province's largest, not-for-profit centre for heritage and science education. Located close to City ...
in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 1995, a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the
Andøya Rocket Range Andøya is the northernmost island in the Vesterålen archipelago, situated about inside the Arctic circle. Andøya is located in Andøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The main population centres on the island include the villages of ...
off the northwestern coast of Norway caused the
Norwegian rocket incident The Norwegian rocket incident, also known as the Black Brant scare, occurred on January 25, 1995 when a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the nort ...
, also known as the Black Brant scare. The trajectory resembled that of a U.S. Navy submarine-launched
Trident missile The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Originally developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation, the missile is armed with thermonuc ...
. Russian nuclear forces were put on high alert as a result, fearing a high-altitude nuclear attack that could blind Russian radar, and Russia's "nuclear briefcase", the
Cheget ''Cheget'' (russian: Чегет) is a " nuclear briefcase" (named after in Kabardino-Balkaria) and a part of the automatic system for the command and control of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces (SNF) named ''Kazbek'' (, named after Mount Kazb ...
, was brought to Russian President
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
, who then had to decide whether to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States. It is the first and thus far only known incident where any nuclear-weapons state had its nuclear briefcase activated and prepared for launching an attack. On September 19, 2009, a Black Brant XII that was launched to study clouds caused numerous calls from the northeastern U.S. reporting "strange lights in the sky". NASA reported that the light came from an artificial
noctilucent cloud Noctilucent clouds, or night shining clouds, are tenuous cloud-like phenomena in the upper atmosphere of Earth. When viewed from space, they are called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), detectable as a diffuse scattering layer of water ice crysta ...
formed by the exhaust particles of the rocket's fourth stage at an altitude of about .


Versions

''the following is enumerated by
roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
''


Black Brant I

*Black Brant I *
Payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...
: *Maximum flight height: *Launch thrust: *Launch mass: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant II

*Black Brant II, Black Brant IIB *Payload: (Black Brant II) *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length: The II was the first rocket for scientific use and was ready in 1960.


Black Brant III

*Black Brant III, Black Brant IIIA, Black Brant IIIB *Payload: (Black Brant III) *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant IV

*Black Brant IV, a two-stage rocket consisting of Black Brant VA first stage with either a Black Brant IIIA or IIIB second stage, Black Brant IVA, Black Brant IVB *Payload: (Black Brant IV) *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant V

*Black Brant V, Black Brant VA, Black Brant VB, Black Brant VC *Payload: (Black Brant V) *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant VI

*Black Brant VI *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant VII

*Black Brant VII *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant VIII

*Black Brant VIII (a.k.a. Nike Black Brant) a two-stage rocket with a Nike M5-E1 booster first stage and either a Black Brant VB or VC second stage, Black Brant VIIIB, Black Brant VIIIC *Maximum flight height: (Black Brant VIII) *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant IX

*Status: Active *Black Brant IX (a.k.a. Terrier Black Brant), a two-stage rocket with a Terrier Mk 70 booster first stage and a Black Brant VB second stage, Black Brant IXB, Black Brant IXBM1, Black Brant IXCM1, Terrier Black Brant XI Mod 2 *Gross Mass: (Black Brant IX) *Height: *Diameter: *Apogee: *First Launch: 1982-03-16 *Last Launch: 2022-11-20 17:21 UTC (ACES-2) *Total launches: 314 *Successful launches: 309


Black Brant X

*Black Brant X (a.k.a. Terrier Black Brant Nihka), a three-stage rocket with a Terrier Mk 70 booster first stage, a Black Brant VB or VC second stage and a Nihka third, Black Brant XB, Black Brant XCM1 *Payload: (Black Brant X) *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant XI

*Black Brant XI (a.k.a. Talos Taurus Black Brant), a three-stage rocket with a Talos booster first stage, Taurus booster second stage, and a Black Brant V third stage, Black Brant XIA *Payload: to altitude, or to altitude (Black Brant XI) *Maximum flight height: *Thrust: *Mass at launch: *Diameter: *Length:


Black Brant XII

*Black Brant XII (a.k.a. Talos Terrier Black Brant Nihka), a four-stage rocket with a Mk 11 Mod 5 Talos booster first stage, Terrier booster second stage (pre 2013 Taurus booster motors were used), Black Brant V third stage and Nihka fourth stage, Black Brant XIIA *Payload: manufacturer rated from (Black Brant XII) *Maximum flight height: Approximately , dependent on payload *Thrust: 116,001 lbf First Stage Talos Booster *Mass at launch: Approximately , dependent on payload *Diameter: *Length:


See also

*
Norwegian rocket incident The Norwegian rocket incident, also known as the Black Brant scare, occurred on January 25, 1995 when a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the nort ...
*


References


Further reading

*Corliss, William R., NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office (1971), ''NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958-1968 A Historical Summary,'' NASA SP-4401. Washington D.C.


External links


Overview on manufacturer's website
(click on ''Black Brant Rocket'')

with more details
NASA Sounding Rocket User's Handbook
{{DEFAULTSORT:Black Brant (Rocket) 1967 in spaceflight 1971 in spaceflight 1974 in spaceflight Space program of Canada Solid-fuel rockets Sounding rockets of Canada Suborbital spaceflight