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NE WS RELEASE
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
400 MARYLAND AVENUE, SW, WASHINGTON, D. C. 20546
TELEPHONES: WORTH 2-4155 -------- WORTH3-6925

FOR RELEASE: WEDNESDAY AMis

April 1, 1964
RELEASE NO: o4-69

NASA SCHEDULES PROJECT FIRE LAUNCH

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

will launch from Cape Kennedy, Fla., no earlier than April

6 a heavily-instrumented 200-pound Project FIRE spacecraft

on a ballistic trajectory to gather scientific information

or, reentry heating.

Project FIRE is a project of Langley Research Center,

Hampton, Va., under over-all direction of NASA's Office of

Advanced Research and Technology. Primary purpose is to

obtain direct measurements of reentry heating at a speed of

25,000 mph, somewhat in excess of the velocity at which a

vehicle enters the Earth's atmosphere after a journey to the

Moon,
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These measurements will form guideposts for the correct

interpretation of research results obtained in laboratory

facilities and in flight experiments at lower speeds.

The reentry spacecraft to be flown in Project FIRE is

a blunt-faced vehicle with a conical afterbody. It is simi-

lar to the shapes of manned spacecraft for which flight data

at lower orbital reentry speeds (about 17,500 mph) have

been gathered. In addition, large amounts of laboratory

data has been collected on similar shapes.

Launch vehicle for Project FIRE will be an Atlas-D. A

velocity package using the solid propellant Antares II rock-

et motor (also used as the third stage of the Scout launch

vehicle) adds the speed needed to drive the reentry pay-

load back into the atmosphere at 25,000 mph. The velocity

package will have a guidance system similar to that used

in Scout.

The Project FIRE flight is designed to follow a ballis-

tic path along the Atlantic Missile Range with reentry near

Ascension Island some 5,000 miles downrange in the South

Atlantic Ocean,

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Flight time will be just over 32 minutes including

21-minute coast period during which the spacecraft will be

oriented to the correct entry attitude. Firing of the

Antares II motor and payload separation begin about 26 min-

utes after liftoff.

Instruments on the spacecraft, on Ascension Island, and

ship and airborne radar and telemetry receiving stations

will gather data on the experiment.

Launch windows for Project FIRE are chosen to provide

total darkness at 400,000 feet in the reentry area. On

April 7, the launch window is between 3:33 and 9:03 p.m. EST.

About mid-April, the window begins to diminsh quite rapidly,

closing entirely on April 21. Clear weather in the reentry

area is essential for optical observations.

Types of Reentry Heating

During reentry most of the speed (kinetic energy) of

the reentering vehicl.e is changed to heat (thermal energy).

Reentries at lunar and planetary return speeds generate

significantly greater heat, and higher heating rates, than

entries at orbital speeds.

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At the speed Project FIRE will attain, the termperature
of the gases in the shock wave area Just ahead of the blunt
reentry body will approach 20,0000 F. This temperature is
an indication of the energy which is transferred from the
speeding vehicle into the surrounding air. The energy trans-
ferred is great enough to break diatonic gas molecules into
individual atoms and to ionize many atoms.

Several chemical and physical changes then take place

in the hot gas area Just ahead of the reentering vehicle.
Atoms may combine with atoms of a different element instead
of their original diatonic twins. New gas components, not
originally present, may be generated, and with them new
physical characteristics. Project FIRE is intended to yield
a important new knowledge in the area of hot gas chemistry.

At satellite reentry speeds and below, convective or

friction heating is predominant. Convective heating takes
place when heat passes directly from the air to the vehicle
flying through it. It occurs in smaller amounts at all
flignt speeds in the atmosphere.

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At higher speeds, radiative heating becomes more

important. Unlike convective heating, radiative heating
does not depend on direct contact, but is analogous to the
heat emitted from the burner of an electric stove which
can be felt several feet away. Project FIRE is designed to
find out the relative importance of radiative heating at

25,000 mph.

Project FIRE onboard experiments will include direct

measurements of radiation from the hot gas cap by means of
specially developed radiometers. Heating will be measured
by more than 250 thermocouples.

The radiometers represent a pioneering technique that

is being used in flight for the first time. It requires a
unique instrumentation arrangement that has been developed
from extensive ground tests,

The phenomenon of radio "blackout" caused by the for-

mation of a plasma sheath also will be studied. Reentry
speeds produce large numbers of ions in the hot gas region
ahead of the spacecraft and these ions carry electrical
charges which block radio waves. Careful measurements of
the way in which Project FIREIs telemetry transmissions vary
through the reentry phase are expected to furnish a better
understanding of the plasma sheath communications problem.

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Project FIRE Reentry Package

The instrumented reentry package for Project FIRE is

a blunt-faced vehicle with a conical afterbody, 26 inches

in diameter across the face and 21 inches long. It weighs

200 pounds. The adapter which supports the reentry package

and connects it to the Antares rocket motor weighs an addi-

tional 50 pounds.

The blunt end of the reentry package consists of three

beryllium calorimeters (devices for measuring absorbed

heat) interleaved with three phenolic asbestos ablative

heat protection layers, The first, third and fifth layers

are beryllium calorimeters instrumented with thermocouples

to provide temperature readings from which the total heating

rates will be determined. The second, fourth and sixth lay-

ers are hatt shields. All but the last two layers will be
burned away or jettisoned during the 45-second flight through

the high reentry heating period.

Choice of the layer design was dictated by the fact

that the calorimeter material -- beryllium -- will survive

only seconds of intense reentry heat, Hence a series of
calorimeters will be used, one during the earliest portion

of the reentry, one when heating rises to a peak, and the

third near the end of the heating period. Twc of the abla-

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tive heat protection layers will be Jettisoned at programmed

times to expose a fresh calorimeter to the hot gas region.

Within the reentry package are three radiometers, Two

are single devices to measure total radiant energy and the

third is a combination total and spectral radiometer. They

will furnish measurements of reentry heating due to radia-

tion from the hot gases.

Radiant energy will be admitted to the instruments

through fused quartz windows. One is located at the center

of the forward face, in what scientists call the stagnation

region; the second near the corner of the front face; and

the third on the conical afterbody.

The combination total and spectral radiometer is designed

to measure the radiant energy in such a way that the experi-

menters can gather information on the chemical composition

of the gases in the radiant region. It will scan radiation

at the stagnation point over a wavelength range from 2,000

to 6,ooo Angstrom units.

In addition to these instruments, each of the ablative

heat shield layers and a number of locations on the reentry

package afterbody and interior structure are equipped with

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thermocouples so that the complete spacecraft will in itself

ope7.dte as a calorimeter. All told, there will be 258

thermocouples in the Project FIRE reentry package.

The conical afterbody is built of sheet aluminum and

fiberglas, covered with a phenolic asbestos laminate. In

addition to the primary Project FIRE instruments it con-

tains: (1) data acquisition and processing electronics;

(2) two solid-state telemetry transmitters; (3) a delayed

data system which tape records research measurements during

the radio blackout period for transmission 45 seconds later;

(4) a C-band beacon for radar tracking; (5) an attitude

sensing system, consisting of three rate gyros and five

linear accelerometers; (6) perssure sensors; (7) an elec-

tronic device attached to the realtime telemetry transmit-

ter to gather information on signal attenuation caused by
the plasma sheath; (8) a time code generator to indicate
elapsed time starting from liftoff; and (9) a cooling sys-
tem.

The reentry package is not designed for recovery,

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Velocit Package

The Project FIRE velocity package is designed to add

sufficient thrust to bring the reentry payload to a speed

of 25,000 miles per hour. It consists of an Antares II

solid propellant motor which also is used as the third

stage of the Scout launch vehicle. Its cylindrical filament-

wound case is 30 inches in diameter. Antares TI burns for
about 30 seconds and produces 24,000 pounds of thrust at

altitude. When assembled with the reentry package and adap-

ter, it forms a structure 12 feet long.

At launch, the velocity package is connected tothe

Atlas launch vehicle by an adapter section 33 inches high.

Around the base of the Antares there is a shell containing

the subsystem devices required for guidance and control,

telemetry, ignition and destruction. The upper portion of

the velocity package is protected during the launch phase

)f flight by a heat shroud, With the shroud in place, the

velocity package assembly is 14 feet, four inches tall.

Weight is approximately 4,150 pounds. Including the reentry

package the total spacecraft weight is 41,400 pounds. The
shroud, velocity package shell and attitude controlsystem

are jettisoned before the Antares II ignites. The wjight

at ignition will be 3,100 pounds.

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Launch Vehicle

The Atlas D booster stage scheduled to launch the

Project FIRE experiment is the Model LV-3A "thick-skin"
version used in the Ranger program. It is approximately
66 Teet high topped by an adapter 33 inches tall to support
the velocity package. It is 10 feet in diameter at the
tank section, and weighs about 260,000 pounds at launch,
carrying a fullJbad of propellants. Its three main engines--
two boosters, one sustainer--generate more than 360,000
pounds of thrust at sea level, burning kerosene-type fuel
with liquid oxygen as oxidizer.

The Atlas D will carry a General Electric radio com-

mand guidance system and a standard Atlas D pitch attitude
command programer.

At sustainer engine cut-off (SECO), the launch vehicle

will be moving at approximately 14,000 miles per hour.

Data and Tracking System

Telemetry from the reentry package, the velocity

package and the launch vehicle will be received by ground
facilities at Cape Kennedy. A range station at Antigua

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will obtain telemetry from the velocity package and the

reentry package. At Ascension Island in the reentry area, 4

reentry package and velocity package telemetry will be

recorded. To collect telemetered data from the reentry

package alone, aircraft and ship-borne receiving equipment

will be deployed in the reentry area. All stations except

the aircraft will provide either radar or optical tracking

or both.

In addition to the radiation measurements to be obtained

in flight, Project FIRE will make the first vse of a spe-

cially designed instrument known as the NASA tracking tele-

spectrograph, which has been mounted on Ascension Island.

The telespectrograph combines the light-gathering power

of a 36-inch diameter telescope with a conventional slitless

spectrograph to obtain a spectrographic record of the re-

entry as it takes place some 85-160 miles from Ascension.

The instrument is capable of measuring the spectrum of light

generated during the Project FIRE reentry in the visible

and near infrared wavelength range to define the chemical

constituents of the incandescent gas. The recording spec-

trograph uses both film and lead sulphide detectors.

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The new instrument, weighing more than 22 tons, is

capable of extreme pointing accuracy, rapid tracking ability
and very high resolution of the optical information it will
gather. It was developed under sponsorship of Langley,

Mission Description

Project FIRE will follow a ballistic flight path which

will require just over 32 minutes from liftoff to payload
splash. Major events are clustered at the beginning and
near the end of the flight separated by a long period of
coasting flight which will last about 21 minutes.

After liftoff, the Atlas launch vehicle will follow

its standard operating sequence, which includes booster en-
gine cutoff (BECO); booster jettison; and sustainer engine
cutoff (SECO).

Following sustainer cutoff, the heat shroud will be

jettisoned. The Atlas vernier engines will operate several
seconds after the heat shroud has separated.

Spacecraft separation will take place after five min-

utes and six seconds of flight at an altitude of 190 statute
miles 490 miles downrange. A series of explosive nuts will
be detonated to separate the velocity package from the
launch vehicle, and retrorockets cr the Atlas complete the
separation.

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Coasting flight begins with the velocity package under

control of an inertially referenced guidance and stabiliza-

tion system. Six cold gas attitude control jets use nitro-

gen stored at 3,000 psi in four spherical tanks.

The velocity package will reach an apogee of approxi-

mately 500 statute miles about 2,500 miles downrange after

15 minutes 41 seconds of flight.

At the end of the 21 minute coast period, the reentry

package is accelerated to the correct speed for the beginning

of reentry.

These events are as follows:

1. Three spin rocket mctors are ignited by a timer in

the velocity package shell after 26 minutes and 14 seconds

of flight. They impart a spinning motion to stabilize the

flight of the velocity package.

2. At 26 minutes and 17 seconds the velocity package

shell is jettisoned.

3. Ignition of the Antares II motor occurs at 26 minutes

and 20 seconds.

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4. The Antares II burns for 30 seconds, with separa-

tion scheduled after 27 minutes and 20 seconds of flight.

At that point a pyrotechnic device releases a coil spring

which expands to separate the reentry package from the adap-

ter that remains attached to the Antares II. The reentry

package moves away from the spent rocket case and adapter

at six feet per second and after a six-second delay a small

rocket fastened to the adapter is fired to insure positive

separation.

At that time, the reentry package should be on a flight

path inclined 15 degrees below horizontal, moving at 25,000

miles per hour on a southeasterly heading about 100 miles

due west of Ascension Island. Splash is calculated to occur

after 32 minutes and 17 seconds of flight at a point approxi-

mately 5,200 statute miles downrange.

Atmosphere Sounding Rockets

A Nike Apache sounding rocket will be launched from

Ascension Island in the South Atlantic within an hour after

the FIRE reentry package plunges back through the atmosphere

at 25,000 mph. The sounding rocket program is managed by

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Instruments carried in the 6 3-pound payload will measure

density, temperature, pressure, and wind conditions up to
75 miles. The data will be telemetered to Ascension Island
so NASA scientists can determine the atmospheric conditions
through which the Project FIRE reentry package flew.

The University of Michigan, under NASA contract,designed

the Nike Apache payload for the Ascension Island tests.
The New Mexico State University is responsible for tracking
the payload.

The Project FIRE Team

Project FIRE is a research investigatUon of NASA's

Office of Advanced Research and Technology headed by
Dr. Raymond L. Bispliinghoff. Within OART Project FIRE is a
responsibility of the Space Vehicles Division, headed
by Milton B. Ames, Jr. Program Chief is Ralph W. May, Jr.,
and Flight Project Officer is Ballard Quass, both of OART.

Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., headed by

Dr. Floyd L. Thompson, Director, is responsible for managing
Project FIRE. The Flight Reentry Programs Office, under
Herbert A. Wilson, Jr., Manager, executes Langley's manage-
ment functions. His principal assistants are David G. Stone,

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Assistant Manager; Richard C. Dineldein, in charge of the

Mission Technical Office; I. G. Recant, head of the Support-

ing Programs Office; H. F. Weber, responsible for Spacecraft

Systems; T. N. Bartron, responsible for the Velocity Package;

D. H. Ward, in charge of Operations; and J. E. Canady, head

of the Space Vehicles Office. J. H. Daniel of Langley has

responsibility for Tracking and Data Acquisition.

The launch vehicle system procurement and management is

a responsibility of the NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland,

0. Dr. S. C. Himmel of the Lewis Agena Project Office is in

charge. The Atlas launch vehicle was procured through the

Space Systems Division of the U. S. Air Force.

Launch operations responsibility has been delegated

by the Lewis Research Center to the Launch Operations Branch

of the Goddard Space Flight Center, headed by Robert H. Gray.

NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center is supporting the

project in data handling, telemetry, and logistics.

Republic Aviation Corp,, Farmingdale, N.Y., was con-

tractor for the reentry package. The velocity package was

built by Ling-Temco-Vought, Astronautics Division, Dallas,
Tex. The Antares II motor was produced by the Hercules
Powder Co., Wilmington, Del., and was procured through the
Langley Research Center.

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General Dynamics/Astronautics, San Diego, Calif.,

was prime contractor for the Atlas launch vehicle and, under

a separate contract, furnished services necessary to accom-

plish integration of all systems and subsystems involved in

Project FIRE.

Extensive ground-based support for Project FIRE is being

provided by the Atlantic Missile Range.

Development of the NASA telespectrograph for remote

measurement of the reentry trail was a responsibility of the

Langley Research Center's Instrument Research Division, head-

ed by Francis B. Smith. J. H. Daniel of the Division staff

was in charge of the project. A major role in providing the

mount for the instrument was played by the U. S. Naval

Ordnance Test Station, China Lake, Calif. Mechanical parts

were furnished by the Cincinnati Milling Machine Co.,

Cincinnati, O., and optical components were built by the

American Optical Cots. J. W. Fecker Division, Pittsburgh, Pa.

On-board research data gathered during the course of

Project FIRE will be reduced by Republic Aviation Corp.

under contract to NASA and subsequently analyzed by members

of the scientific and engineering staff of the Langley Research

Center.

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 /' 521 mi.
- I mAlt.
g \ ~Range 2544 mi. |I \
/5 I ~~Time 940 sec ,/ ~ t

/ 1500 4 002000

(0) / /504000\ ,4500

05000
GREAT CIRCLE EARTH TRACIK ®SPIN-uP.1574 sec/4601 ml.
/ ~5234m.
'SPLASH"
LAUNCH . (V/P SHELL JETTISON 1577 sec/4613 mi.

,V V )X259 MOTOR IGN. 1580.2 sec/4624 mi.

6(SPACECRAFT SEPARATION - 308.3 sec/486 mi. ®THRUST = ZERO AT 1640.2 sec/4958 mi.
I RIENTATION . .319.3 sec/535 mi. X 2 59 BURNOUT Alt. 452,458 ft.
2 3R/P SEPARATION Vel. 25,;26 mph

Q SUSTAINER ENGINE CUTOFF SEE NOTE

SEPARATION
4 (HSIIROUD
WVERNIER CUTOFF -

*®BOOSTER JETTISON

NOTE ®TUMBLE ROCKET IGN. 1646.2 sec/4995 mi. \ ^

CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR
NASA EXPERIMENTS
ALTITUDE 400.000 FT
I BECO VELOCITY 25,227 *ph
RE-ENTRYANGLE-15'(REF HORIZONTAL) ®SPlASIP 1972 sec/5234 ml.

I.IFTOFF-2 INCH MOTION/T o. SEC FIRE Vehicle Trajectory and Flight Sequence of Events
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