Sounding Rockets (Sub-Orbital, UNmanneD Launch Vehicles)

China? Russia? Germany? The US? Who was really first?

History is filled with stories that trace man's unending quest for information about the stars, planets, solar systems, asteroids, comets, explosions - the life energy that exists in that area beyond earth's atmosphere that we so simply call "space".

Click here to read about the history of sounding rocket technology, its impact on space exploration, and its continuing importance to research and education. Since May 1959, Wallops Flight Facility has completed more than 2,945 missions involving 45 types of sounding rocket vehicles; Click here to see which rockets take the lead as “most launched in Wallops' history.”

Since Contract award, NSROC has launched 168 sounding rocket missions and maintained a vehicle success rate of 96%. Click on each of the rockets in the graphic below to see actual shots of WFF sounding rockets; a brief history and a description of their capabilities is included on each link .

NASA SOUNDING ROCKET LAUNCH VEHICLES

Historical Credits:

NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958 - 1968 - A Historical Summary by William R. Corliss (NASA Historical Report Series), 1971

Sounding Rockets, by Homer E. Newell, Jr., (McGraw Hill Series in Missile and Space Technology), 1959

Rockets, Jets and the Atom, by Constantin Paul Lent, Pen-Ink Publishing Co, 1952

Illustrated Guide to U.S. Missiles and Rockets, by Stanley M. Ulanoff, Doubleday & Company, 1962

Rockets Into Space by Frank H. Winter, Harvard University Press, 1990

A New Dimension, Wallops Island Flight Test Range, The First Fifteen Years, by Joseph Adams Shortal, (NASA Reference Publication 1028), 1978

Dreams, Hopes, Realities NASA's Goddard Flight Center, the First Forty Years, by Lane E. Wallace (NASA SP-4312), 1999