Conestoga
by
Jean-Jacques Serra
listing by
Gunter Krebs
The Conestoga launchers are based on a program of Space Services Inc (SSI) in
the early 80ies. The company was bought by EER Systems in December 1990 and
became it's Space Service Division.
The first achievement of SSI was a liquid rocket named Percheron. It
should have been the base for a launcher series made of modules of 1.2 m
diameter and 12 m high with each a motor and a propellant tank. The first
Percheron rocket exploded on the first motor static test on the Matagorda
island (Texas) launch pad on 5 Aug 1981.
Following this failure SSI changed to solid propulsion with missile or
rocket elements already operational. For it's first test on 9 Sep 1982 the
Conestoga 1 (11.5 m high, 6.5 tons) was based on a single active stage: an
Aerojet M56-A1 of 207 kN (the second stage of the Minuteman 1 ICBM) also used
for Aries rockets. The flight was a success and the payload was ejected at
apogee (313 km).
Note: in the late 80ies SSI started working on commercial flights for
microgravity experiments (Consort program). They used Starfire rockets
(Canadian Black Brant 9 rockets with a Terrier missile booster).
EER Systems stayed with the modular concept to offer a series of light
launchers based on various Thiokol boosters: Castor-4, Star-37 and Star-48.
The most powerful version (Conestoga 1620) features 6
Castor-4
(4
Castor-4B
and 2
Castor-4A)
surrounding a
Castor-4B.
Four Castor are on at liftoff (first stage), two more (second stage) and the
central Castor acts as the third stage. The Star 48 top stage copes with orbit
injection. This launcher is 15.7 m high, 87.3 tons and can deliver 460 km in
orbit (40.5°).
The first launch was a failure. There are doubts on the ability of EER to
finance another flight.
Designation
|
Length
(m)
|
Diameter
(m)
|
Mass
(tons)
|
Thrust
in vaccum (kN)
|
Burn
duration (s)
|
Castor
4A (TX780)
|
8.09-9.20
|
1,02
|
11,58
|
436-476
|
53.1
|
Castor-4B
(TX859)
|
8,98
|
1,02
|
11,48
|
429
|
60.9
|
Star
-37 FM (TEM-784)
|
1,68
|
0,93
|
1,15
|
48
|
63,7
|
Star-48
(TEM-711)
|
2,03
|
1,25
|
2,14
|
66
|
84
|
#
|
Launch
id
|
Payload
|
Launch
date
|
Type
|
Status
(orbit in perigee x apogee x inc. x period)
|
1
|
n/a
|
Meteor (US)
|
23
Oct 1995 at 22:03 UT
|
1620
|
Failure:
The vehicle was destroyed 45s into the first stage burn, at an altitude of 11 km
|
Notes:
launches from Wallops