The Cajun rocket was constructed of
stainless steel, with extruded
Duraluminum
Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of ''Dürener'' and ''aluminium''.
Its use as a trad ...
stabilising fins.
The rocket motor, developed by
Thiokol
Thiokol (variously Thiokol Chemical Corporation(/Company), Morton Thiokol Inc., Cordant Technologies Inc., Thiokol Propulsion, AIC Group, ATK Thiokol, ATK Launch Systems Group; finally Orbital ATK before becoming part of Northrop Grumman) was a ...
,
was capable of producing up to thrust.
Operational history
The first test launch of the Cajun rocket took place at the
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 of America. It is just south of Chincoteague Island, a popular tourist destination.
Wa ...
range in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
on June 20, 1956.
The rocket proved to be as successful as expected, and was quickly put into extensive use, both on its own and as an upper stage in the
Nike Cajun
The Nike-Cajun was a two-stage sounding rocket built by combining a Nike base stage with a Cajun upper stage. The Nike-Cajun was known as a CAN for Cajun And Nike. The Cajun was developed from the Deacon rocket. It retained the external size, shap ...
(or CAN, 'Cajun And Nike'),
[Parsch 2002] first launched on July 6, 1956;
[Corliss 1971, p.25.] and in the
Terasca
Terasca, or Terrier-ASROC-Cajun, was an American three-stage sounding rocket developed and launched by the United States Navy. Derived from a combination of the Terrier, ASROC and Cajun rockets, three launches were attempted during 1959, but only o ...
three-stage rocket, first launched May 1, 1959.
[Parsch 2007] Several other sounding rocket configurations made use of the Cajun stage, the most extensively used being the
Cajun Dart
Cajun Dart is the designation of an American sounding rocket. The Cajun Dart was used 87 times between 1964 and 1970. The Cajun rocket motor was developed from Deacon.
Staged on top of a Nike rocket, it was part of the Nike-Cajun sounding rocket ...
;
the
Bullpup-Cajun and
Double Cajun
A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another.
Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to:
Film and television
* Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character
* ' ...
rockets also utilised the stage.
In total, over eight hundred launches of the Cajun rocket in its various configurations were conducted between 1956 and October 6, 1976, when the final Cajun flight, in the Nike-Cajun configuration, was undertaken at Wallops Island.
See also
*
MQR-13 BMTS
The XMQR-13A Ballistic Missile Target System (BMTS) was an unguided target rocket developed by the United States Army during the 1960s, intended for use in the development of missile defense systems. Utilising off-the-shelf parts in four different ...
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
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{{Use American English, date=January 2014
Sounding rockets of the United States