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Description

Aerobee 150A, top, in assembly area. At left below, Aerobee 350 launched on its first full flight test, 18 June 1965. At right below, Astrobee 1500 erected for its first flight test, 21 October 1964.

Development of the Aerobee liquid-propellant sounding rocket was begun in 1946 by the Aerojet Engineering Corporation (later Aerojet-General Corporation) under contract to the U.S. Navy. The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins University was assigned technical direction of the project. James A. Van Allen, then Director of the project at APL, proposed the name "Aerobee." He took the "Aero" from Aerojet Engineering and the "bee" from Bumblebee, the name of the overall project to develop naval rockets1 that APL was monitoring for the Navy. The 18-kilonewton-thrust, two-stage Aerobee was designed to carry a 68-kilogram payload to a 130-kilometer altitude.

In 1952, at the request of the Air Force and the Navy, Aerojet undertook design and development of the Aerobee-Hi, a high-performance version of the Aerobee designed expressly for research in the upper atmosphere.2 An improved Aerobee-Hi became the Aerobee 150. The uprated Aerobee 150 was named "Astrobee." Aerojet used the prefix "Aero" to designate liquid-propellant sounding rockets and "Astro" for its solid-fueled rockets.

Date

1964

Source

Origins of NASA Names

Author

NASA History

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(Reusing this file)

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