The Nike stage or Nike booster, a

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 fuel ...

rocket motor, was created by

Hercules Aerospace Hercules, Inc. was a chemical and munitions manufacturing company based in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, incorporated in 1912 as the Hercules Powder Company following the breakup of the DuPont explosives monopoly by the U.S. Circuit ...

for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the

Nike Ajax The United States Army's Nike Ajax was the world's first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM), entering service in 1954. Nike Ajax was designed to attack conventional bomber aircraft flying at high subsonic speeds and altitudes abov ...

and

Nike Hercules The Nike Hercules, initially designated SAM-A-25 and later MIM-14, was a surface-to-air missile (SAM) used by U.S. and NATO armed forces for medium- and high-altitude long-range air defense. It was normally armed with the W31 nuclear warhead, bu ...

missiles as part of

Project Nike Project Nike (Greek: Νίκη, "Victory") was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft mi ...

.Ed Thelen's Nike Missile Web Site.
/ref> It was subsequently employed in a variety of missiles and multi-stage sounding rockets, becoming one of the most popular and reliable rocket stages, not only in the United States, but also in several other countries around the world.Corliss 1972 p. 24

Sounding rockets based on Nike Booster

*The Nike Deacon has a ceiling of 189 km, a takeoff thrust of 217 kN, a takeoff weight of 710 kg, a diameter of 0.42 m and a length of 7.74 m. * The

Nike Javelin The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike He ...

was launched 34 times between 1964 and 1978. The maximum

flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

altitude of the Nike Javelin was 130 km, the takeoff thrust 217 kN, takeoff weight 900 kg, 0.42 m and length 8.20 m. * The

Nike Malemute The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike He ...

consists of a Nike starting stage and a Malemute upper stage. It has a ceiling of , a takeoff thrust of , a takeoff weight of , a diameter of and a length of . *The

Nike Orion The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike He ...

has a Nike base stage, taken from

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

surplus stocks, and an Orion upper stage. The Nike Orion is long. There are two stages of boosters; the first is 41.9 cm (16.5), and the second is . It has a launch weight of , a launch thrust of 217 kN (48,800 lbf) and a ceiling of 140 km (460,000 ft). The first Nike-Orion rocket was launched on February 26, 1977, and had more than 175 launches through the 2000s. *The Nike Recruit has an apogee of 5 km, a liftoff thrust of 217 kN, a total mass of 1100 kg and a total length of 8.00 m. * The

Nike Tomahawk The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike He ...

has a Nike rocket as the first stage, and a

Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Eur ...

rocket as the second. The Nike Tomahawk has a ceiling of 230

statute mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 Engli ...

s (370 km), a payload capacity of , a launch thrust of 49,000 pounds of force (217 kN), a launch weight of , a diameter of and a length of . The Nike Tomahawk was launched 395 times between June 25, 1963, and November 27, 1995. One of its launches was in 1966 on the beach in

Cassino Cassino () is a ''comune'' in the province of Frosinone, Southern Italy, at the southern end of the region of Lazio, the last city of the Latin Valley. Cassino is located at the foot of Monte Cairo near the confluence of the Gari and Liri ri ...

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. * The

Nike Viper The Nike stage or Nike booster, a solid fuel rocket motor, was created by Hercules Aerospace for the Nike Ajax (M5) Nike Hercules (M5E1) (and M88 late in Hercules career). It was developed for use as the first stage of the Nike Ajax and Nike Her ...

consists of a Nike starting stage and a Viper upper stage. The Nike Viper has a ceiling of 80 km, a takeoff thrust of 217 kN (48,800 lbf), a takeoff weight of 600 kg and a length of 8.00 m.

References

Books

External links

U.S. Naval Research Lab. - Nike Booster

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum - Fins, Set of Four, Rocket, Nike Booster, Nike-Cajun

{{Authority control Rocket stages

Sounding rockets based on Nike Booster

See also

References

Books

External links