European Agency of Space Stuff

Routine Mission (1955-01-25): A simple SR-2a sounding mission that succeeded with no complications. Routine Mission (1955-06-25): This mission necessitated a modified version of the SR-2d with the second stage engines and fuel removed and the first stage power reduced somewhat. This made the rocket slow enough to be capable of re-entry, allowing for the returning a biological experiment. It was a successful mission.   Routine mission (1955-11-23): For this mission we were tasked with taking up an ' advanced biological payload' in a sub-orbital trajectory and returning it. The modified re-entry capable SR-2d was selected for the job. Buddy the dog has successfully returned to Earth safely without any issues and earned his wings! Historical Aside: The first dogs in to space were strays called Tsygan and Dezik, sent up as early as 1951 on R-1 rockets . Dezik perished on a second flight after the parachute on their capsule failed. Tsygan survived the programme and would be adopte

Reminder: Our mission objective is fly a sub-orbital trajectory travelling over 3000km across Africa, putting us in Egypt (or thereabouts). Our payload is not expected to survive re-entry in to the atmosphere. Just a video this time, I don't want to spoil anything: Next Post: Dogs (and cat) of space

Date : 1954-06-13 Amidst news that the Soviets may be developing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), their so-called "R7" project , we have been tasked with producing a rocket capable of reaching from Western Europe to Moscow. The objective is simple in its audacity: Increase our rocket's capabilities from 600km downrange to over 3,000km, creating an Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) before the two superpowers. We have a range of new technological innovations on our side: We have developed a newer, lighter, aluminium alloy for our rockets. We have improved our existing main rocket engines (on par with the Russian RD-102). We have improved our avionics to the point we can control our rocket launches. We have also developed a new upper stage rocket engine similar to the US AJ10-27 engines, which use nitric acid/aniline and are the latest generation of the SR-1 engines we flew right back in 1951. Historical Aside: The Russian RD-102 was never actually d

Having received more contracts regarding film and biological sample opportunities, I decided to take stock of our options. From the selection available, it was clear that continuing rocketry missions would be more profitable at the current time than continuing with the Y-1 project. As a result, I'm shelving the Y-1 for now and focusing on the many rocket contracts available until we have some breakthroughs in our technology. Which leads us to... Routine Mission (1953-10-11): Sent up an SR-2c payload to complete another downrange filming contract. About half way through the mission the rocket experienced thrust loss, meaning that it was impossible to complete the mission objectives. The engine then cut out entirely at around 90% of the burn. Naturally, this is the first failed mission of the project, as the universe spites us for going off piste. I did manage to recover a little bit of film data, but all in all, this was a wasted four months of engineering. Despite this failure, I d

Routine Mission (1953-02-27): Sent up an SR-2c payload to complete a biological capsule contract. Went smoothly without issues, netting a big ol' payment which was immediately funneled to R&D. To complete our next mission from the French Ministère des Armées , to take an early film camera and photograph a stretch of North Africa from a height of at least 100km while travelling over 200km, will require a variation of our SR-2 design: This monster of a single engine-staged rocket is capable of taking the 160kg payload over 200km high and nearly 650km downrange, all the way to the west coast of Africa, where parachutes can bring the film down safely for study. The mission was completed successfully on 1953-06-04. We now have 40k in funds and 39 (!) in unspent Science™. 20k of those funds are going to be push straight in to ongoing R&D, which continues to be our main priority. The sooner we can unlock new materials technology, the sooner we can make the leap to more powerful en

Date : 1952-10-30 Funds : ~15k Unspent Science : ~26 Scheduled Science : 14 Routine Mission (1952-10-27): An SR-2a launch was scheduled to perform a routine sounding rocket contract but had to be scrubbed when the rocket engines failed to ignite on the launch pad (!). There was no adverse effect to the rocket. Routine Mission (1952-10-29): The engines were repaired and the launch was completed successfully. Here's our plan for the next couple of years: There's no plan to start any new programmes. For now, I expect to keep adapting and progressively enhancing the Y-1 and SR-2 designs to meet our new short-term objectives. Our next SR-2 flight will complete a requested biological payload mission. We will then perform some further Y-1 rocket-plane experiments (the second of which will require upgrades to achieve), slap a camera on the SR-2 for some cartographic snooping, then attempt to fire the SR-2 rocket significantly downrange . Historical Aside: Downrange rocket flight tests