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Viking was a series of twelve sounding rockets designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company under the direction of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Designed to supersede the German V-2 as a research vehicle, the Viking was the most advanced large, liquid-fueled rocket developed in the United States in the late 1940s, providing much engineering experience while returning valuable ...
Launch of Viking 4. Vikings 1 and 2, launched in 1949 from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, both suffered from premature engine cutoff due to turbine leaks, significantly reducing their maximum altitude. [6]: 98–102 The improved Viking 3, launched on 9 February 1950, reached 50 mi (80 km) and could have gone higher.
The version used on the Ariane 4 first stage, which used a cluster of four, had 667 kN thrust each. The second stage of Ariane used a single Viking. Over 1000 were built, and achieved a high level of reliability from early in the programme. The 144 Ariane 1 to 4 launchers used a total of 958 Viking engines. Only two engines led to a failure.
The Viking program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, Viking 1 and Viking 2, which landed on Mars in 1976. [1] The mission effort began in 1968 and was managed by the NASA Langley Research Center. [ 4 ]
The team would achieve increased performance through larger fuel tanks and reduced weight elsewhere on the rocket. Originally planned for launch in 1951, the development of the second generation Viking took two years, and the first of the new rockets would not launch until 6 June 1952. [4]: 172–3, 236
After ten months of salvage, testing, and troubleshooting following the failed launch of Viking 10 on 30 June 1953, a successful static firing of the rebuilt rocket took place at the end of April 1954. Launch was scheduled for 4 May. Control issues revealed in the static firing as well as gusty, sand-laden winds caused a delay of three days.
With lessons learned from the Viking 8 failure, the successful 9 December static firing of Viking 9 was followed on 15 December by a successful launch from White Sands. The rocket reached an altitude of 135 miles (217 km), roughly the same as that of the first-generation Viking 7 in 1950.
The Titan IIIE or Titan 3E, also known as the Titan III-Centaur, was an American expendable launch system.Launched seven times between 1974 and 1977, [4] it enabled several high-profile NASA missions, including the Voyager and Viking planetary probes and the joint West Germany-U.S. Helios spacecraft.