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Astronomy: Viking rocket
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The first Viking rocket was launched in May 1949 as an replacement and enhancement of the German V2 rockets used during the second world war. After the second world war some V2 rockets were captured and studied to capture the technology used. And with the expertise of Werner von Braun and other scientists during the post war period rockets developed quickly (after world war II, operation paperclip was meant to recruit 150 scientist from Germany for a period of 5 years to capture their knowledge. Almost all 150 remained in the USA after that 5 year period). The Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University then undertook to develop a medium-altitude rocket, the Aerobee. And The Naval Research Laboratory made plans for a new large high-altitude research rocket, the Neptune. The Neptune soon was renamed to Viking to avoid confusion with the Lockheed P2V Neptune aircraft. The program was terminated after the flight of Viking 12 in February 1955. The well tested Aerobee and various cheap solid-fueled sounding rockets had made Viking too expensive for use as a general high-altitude research tool. The remaining two Vikings (13 and 14) were used as test vehicles in the Vanguard satellite launch vehicle program. Related subject>> V2 rockets before and after the second world war |
 The Viking 10 rocket |
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