Deacon is the designation of an American

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 often ...

. The Deacon was launched 90 times from 1947 to 1957 from

Wallops Island Wallops Island is a island in Accomack County, Virginia, part of the Virginia Barrier Islands that stretch along the eastern seaboard of the United States. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination. Wallops Isla ...

, and it also was the rocket portion of the first

rockoon A rockoon (from ''rocket'' and ''balloon'') is a sounding rocket that, rather than being lit immediately while still on the ground, is first carried into the upper atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon, then separated from the balloon and ignited. ...

s, launched 1952 to 1956. The Deacon has a maximum flight height of 20 kilometers and a payload ability of 17 kilograms. The takeoff

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...

of the Deacon amounts to 27 kN, the takeoff

weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is a quantity associated with the gravitational force exerted on the object by other objects in its environment, although there is some variation and debate as to the exact definition. Some sta ...

93 kg, the diameter 0.16 m and the length 3.28 m.

Triple Deacon

The Triple Deacon was a single stage member of the Deacon family that used three Deacon booster motors. Five launches from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility occurred in 1953.

References

{{Cajun rockets 1953 in spaceflight Sounding rockets of the United States