The Astris was a
liquid
Liquid is a state of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. Liquids adapt to the shape of their container and are nearly incompressible, maintaining their volume even under pressure. The density of a liquid is usually close to th ...
rocket engine
A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...
burning the
hypergolic
A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other.
The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...
propellant combination of
Aerozine 50
__NOTOC__
Aerozine 50 is a 50:50 mix by weight of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), developed in the late 1950s by Aerojet General Corporation as a storable, high-energy, hypergolic fuel for the Titan II ICBM rocket engines ...
and
N2O4.
A single engine powered
Astris In Greek mythology, Astris (Ancient Greek: Ἀστρὶς) or Asteria was, in Nonnus's ''Dionysiaca'', one of the Heliades, daughters of Helios, either by the Oceanid Clymene or the Oceanid Ceto. She married the river god Hydaspes (the modern Jh ...
third stage of the failed
Europa
Europa may refer to:
Places
* Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace
* Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro
* Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development
* Europa Cliffs, Alexan ...
rocket.
On November 29, 1968, its inaugural flight, the Astris third stage exploded. On the second attempt in July 1969, the Astris engine failed to start. On the third attempt on June 11, 1970, the stage performed correctly, but the fairing failed to separate.
On November 5, 1971, the
Europa II launched from
CSG ELA-1
ELV () is a launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana supporting launches of the Vega and Vega C rockets. It was first built in November 1971 and was previously used to support launches of the Europa, Ariane 1 and Ariane 3 ...
, had a mishap due to structural failure of the third stage. After this last failure the project was definitely cancelled.
See also
*
Astris (rocket stage)
The Astris was an upper stage developed by ERNO Raumfahrttechnik GmbH and MBB as the third stage of the Europa 1 launch vehicle. It was the German contribution to the project and only flew activated four times. The high failure rate of the thre ...
*
Europa (rocket)
The Europa rocket was an early expendable launch system of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), which was the precursor to the European Space Agency (ESA). It was developed with the aim to delivering space access technology, a ...
*
Viking (rocket engine)
The Viking rocket engines were members of a series of bipropellant engines for the first and second stages of the Ariane 1 through Ariane 4 commercial launch vehicles, using storable, hypergolic propellants: dinitrogen tetroxide and UH 25, a mi ...
References
Rocket engines using hypergolic propellant
Rocket engines using the pressure-fed cycle
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