To Be Displayed At White Sands After 2008
PlanetSpace Corporation
plans to launch paying customers into space in the Canadian Arrow
suborbital spacecraft starting in 2007; the first manned launches
will take place with professional astronauts aboard. When they
begin to retire their reusable vehicles after several flights each,
in 2008, they will restore one to resemble a V-2 and donate it to
the White Sands Missile Range Museum.
White Sands was the location of 64 V-2 launches from 1946 to
1952 -- these V-2 launches represent the infancy of the United
States military and civilian space program, and their historic
value can hardly be overstated. While the first few were just fired
in V-2 mode, subsequent rockets were used for all kinds of
experiments with guidance, control, and staging; America's first
successful two-stage rocket was a skinny Corporal sounding rocket
atop a plump V-2.
Being able to build on the basis of German wartime technology
gave the United States a considerable boost in rocketry, and led to
the familiar stereotype of the German rocket scientist that
permeated American popular culture in the Space Age 1960s.
But V-2 technology continues to be leveraged by practical space
engineers. The Canadian Arrow, originally developed as an X-Prize
contender, is based very closely upon the V-2. "The tail and nose
cone structures are identical," says PlanetSpace, and the engine
would be instantly recognized by Wernher von Braun. The ends of the
vehicle are identical, but the Arrow has a second stage which
contains the crew cabin, and unlike the original V-2, which was a
weapon, both stages of the Arrow recover to Earth by parachute and
are reusable.
For the display, the nose and tail of decommissioned Arrows will
be joined in V-2 fashion, and the spacecraft will be painted to
resemble a V-2 and installed in the V-2 gantry at Launch Complex 33
at White Sands.
"PlanetSpace will assemble the Canadian Arrow rocket components
and paint the outside of the V-2 display to resemble the TF-1
flight launched at White Sands Missile Range in 1951. This TF-1
commemorative rocket will be donated to the WSMR museum for display
at Launch Complex 33," the company said.
Geoff Sheerin, PlanetSpace CEO, explained why the WSMR museum
particularly should benefit. "The WSMR museum was a great help to
the Canadian Arrow engineering group in the early days of their
project, and Canadian Arrow has a debt of gratitude to the friendly
and helpful people they met on the range."
"White Sands missile
range is the cradle of the US space and missile program and it
gives us great satisfaction to see the help provided to Canadian
Arrow by the WSMR come full circle and provide a brand new display
for their museum," Sheerin added.
The LC-33 site is currently a National Historical Landmark and
has a Hermes-A1 rocket, a smaller, winged rocket based on V-2
technology, on display there in the V-2 gantry (the obscure Hermes
project rockets were also fired from LC-33 from May 1950). The
Hermes-A1 is property of the National Air and Space Museum; its
ultimate disposition will depend on the desires of the NASM.
They can start planning now, for if things go right for
PlanetSpace Hermes is going to be booted off LC-33 sometime in
2008, and a V-2 will stand in the gantry for the first time in 56
years.
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