Skua is the designation of a British

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 ...

which was launched between 1959 and 1981 in four versions over 300 times. The Skua was developed by

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

Aerojet Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp, ...

and RPE Wescott. It consisted of a starting stage made up of several Chick rockets (like the

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) that burned for 0.2 seconds. They propelled the rocket 20 metres over the 5-metre-long launch tube. After that, the Bantam main stage ignited. The

solid rocket motor A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The inception of gunpowder rockets in warfare can be cre ...

of the main stage had an end-burning propellant grain and burned for 30 seconds. The starting stage descended on parachutes and was re-filled and re-used. The fastest

jet stream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow thermal wind, air currents in the Earth's Atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere. The main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds, flowing west to east around the gl ...

velocity ever measured (656 km/h or 408 mph) was recorded by instruments on board a Skua rocket above

South Uist South Uist (, ; ) is the second-largest island of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. At the 2011 census, it had a usually resident population of 1,754: a decrease of 64 since 2001. The island, in common with the rest of the Hebrides, is one of the ...

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

, Scotland at an altitude of 47,000 m (154,200 ft), on 13 December 1967.

Versions

There were four versions of the Skua rocket:

References

1974 in spaceflight Sounding rockets of the United Kingdom {{rocket-stub

Versions

See also

References