__NOTOC__ Ping-Pong was a battlefield

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

rocket developed by Lockheed-California – later the

Lockheed Missiles and Space Company Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) was a unit of the Lockheed Corporation "Missiles, Space, and Electronics Systems Group." LMSC was started by Willis Hawkins who served as its president. After Lockheed merged with Martin-Marietta the ...

– for use by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

. Intended to give battlefield commanders the ability to gain photographic data on enemy locations, it reached the flight-test stage before being cancelled.

Development history

In 1964, the

called for proposals for a rocket that could be launched by Army units towards the suspected location of enemy units, with a camera carried on board the rocket taking pictures of the target area, before a second

retrorocket A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft land ...

motor, located in the nose of the rocket, fired to return it to its point of launch for analysis of its reconnaissance pictures.''Missiles and Rockets'', Volume 15 (1964)
p. 240
Proposals were received from Lockheed-California,

Goodyear Aerospace Goodyear Aerospace Corporation (GAC) was the aerospace and defense subsidiary of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company was originally operated as a division within Goodyear as the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, part of a joint project ...

, the Chrysler Corporation Missile Division, and

Beech Aircraft Beechcraft is an American brand of civil aviation and Military aircraft, military aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of Beech Aircraft Corporation, an American manufacture ...

; the Lockheed proposal, named "Ping-Pong", was funded for development. Ping-Pong was conventional in appearance, launched from a tube in diameter.Parsch 2003 A

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

fin arrangement provided stabilization; the fins were mounted on a sliding assembly, allowing them to shift to the opposite end of the rocket's body when the retrorocket was fired to reverse the rocket's direction for the return flight. Flight testing of Ping-Pong took place at

Rosamond Dry Lake Rosamond Lake is a natural dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert of Kern and Los Angeles County, California. The shores of the lake are entirely within the borders of Edwards Air Force Base, approximately from Lancaster. The lake is adjacent to Rog ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

during the second half of 1964. The tests were considered to be successful, with the rocket being reported as "the free world's only round-trip ballistic missile";''Machine Design'', Volume 36 (1964)
p. 12
however, follow-up studies did not result in further development.

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links

{{Lockheed Martin aircraft Experimental rockets of the United States United States Army equipment Lockheed Corporation Reconnaissance