Rocket History

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=100 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="06f64643.jpg"> <div> <I>The Isle of Wight Photo Gallery</I><I>  </I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="isle_of_wight_.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Index"><U><B>MAP</B></U></A></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id247.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Index"><U>Index</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id245.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Needles View"><U>Needles View</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id689.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ariel View"><U>Ariel View</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id725.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Needles Close Up"><U>Needles Close Up</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id246.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Battery Entrance"><U>Battery Entrance</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id249.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Battery"><U>Battery</U></A>   |   <B>Rocket History</B>   |   <A HREF="id250.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Anniversary Photos"><U>Anniversary Photo's</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id253.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Black Knight"><U>Black Knight</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id254.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Anniversary Photos "><U>Anniversary Photo's </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id251.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Black Arrow"><U>Black Arrow</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id255.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="View Towards The Battery"><U>View Towards The Battery</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id256.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="View Towards Alum Bay"><U>View Towards Alum Bay</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id257.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Guns"><U>The Guns</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id258.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Within The Battery"><U>Within The Battery</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id260.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sunset over the Needles"><U>Sunset over the Needles</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id261.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sunset 2"><U>Sunset - 2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id262.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Testing"><U>Testing</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id263.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Site Plan"><U>Site Plan</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id265.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Prospero"><U>Prospero</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id266.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Black Knight at Cowes"><U>Black Knight at Cowes</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id641.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Wireless Monument"><U>Wireless Monument</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id642.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PLesure Park"><U>PLesure Park</U></A></div> <div>  <HEAD> <STYLE type="text/css">  </STYLE> </HEAD>  </div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="efd5a5a3.jpg"> <div> <B>B</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#660000" FACE="Times New Roman" >y the early 1950s the British Government had successfully exploded both atomic and hydrogen bombs, and now set out to develop a means of delivery;  the inter-continetal ballistic missile code -named Blue Streak.</FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>A</B> significant part of this activity was the building and launching of a smaller rocket that used the complex liquid propellants but employed hardware and techniques that were immediately available.  The rocket was code-named<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B> </B><A HREF="id253.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Black Knight"><U><B>Black Knight.</B></U></A></FONT>  In 1955 Saunders Roe of Cowes were commissioned to develop the missile.</div> <bR> <div> <B>T</B>o assemble and test each rocket before shipment to the Australian launch site at Woomera, Saunders Roe required a local test site.  The Needles Headland offered a secure site with suitable underground accommodation.  In 1955 the <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="id263.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Site Plan"><U><B>Highdown</B></U></A></FONT> site was leased to the Ministry of war.</div> <bR> <div> <B>U</B>nder the instruction of architect John A. Strubbe, construction began in April 1956.  The Needles Headland was transformed into something like a James Bond film set.  A complex of buildings was constructed over the new Battery and underground control and instrumentation rooms were converted from the old magazines.  There were 2,200 square feet of control rooms and underground stores, 4,260 square feet of laboratories and offices and 3,080 square feet of workshops and smaller machine shops.  The dining rooms catered for 80 people at a time.  In all there was space enough for 240 people, a number reached at it the peak of operations in the early 60s.</div> <bR> <div> <B>I</B>n the early stages serious consideration was given to accommodating the Blue Streak at the site.  This would have meant digging silos deep into the hillside - Impractical but not impossible.  As it was, development of the Blue Streak took place at its own purpose-built facility at Spadeadam, near Carlisle, and its own chequered history is another story.</div> <bR> <div> <B>T</B>he 10 metre long Black Knight rockets were assembled in the workshops.  Then they were towed down the newly built road along the cliff above Scrathell's Bay to one of the two 60 foot high test gantries.  The rockets were erected inside the steel and aluminium towers by men dressed in protective suites with glass fronted helmets operating one and a half ton mobile hoists. </div> <bR> <div> <B>D</B>uring a test firing all activities followed a strict time sequence, with the operation of the rocket controlled automatically by a sequencer unit.  At any point the process could be aborted by the press of a button from several monitoring positions, most of which were underground.  In addition to manual observations taken from the secure blockhouse, an array of camera, tape recorders and specialist devices automatically logged data from several hundred instruments sensors placed within the engine and other rocket systems. </div> <bR> <div> <B>W</B>ith the missile successfully tested, a team of engineers accompanied it to the launch site.  In all, 23 single and Two-stage Black Knights were launched, between September 1958 and November 1965. </div> <bR> <div> <B>T</B>he success of the Black Knight suggested the need for Britain to develop a capacity to launch satellites, and in 1965 the Highdown team started work on <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="id251.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Black Arrow"><U><B>Black Arrow</B></U></A>,</FONT> an 18 ton, 13 metre, three stage rocket designed to put a 300 kilogram satellite into a circular near earth orbit. </div> <div> Five Black Arrows were built and four launched into space, the first in 1968.  The rocket project reached a zenith on 28th October 1971 with the launch of the first, and only all-British satellite put into space by a British rocket.  The experimental satellite, designated Prospero in space, achieved a near perfect orbit and carried out short term data collection on micrometeorites and space erosion.  </div> <bR> <div> <B>H</B>aving achieved its peak, the British space programme suddenly ended in lack of political will and scientific consensus on how to use the rocket.   Although briefly put up for tender tt potential buyers, the Highdown rocket test site was closed in July 1972 and the buildings and infrastructure quickly dismantled. </div> <bR> <div> <B>T</B>he concrete bones of the Highdown rocket site are one of the few reminders of the successful, if short lived, British space programme of the latter half of the 20th Century.  The last Black Arrow now resides at The British national Science Museum.  Another reminder is Prospero, which will continue to orbit the Earth for another 225 years.  </div> <bR> <div> <B>A</B>s for the future of Highdown, the site is now owned and caringly administered by the National Trust, with the whole area having recently been granted Ancient Monument status. </div> <bR> <div> <B>I</B>t is hoped, too, that one day a Heritage Centre will be built close to the site as a more fitting tribute to a pioneering and too long unrecognised period of space, British and Island History. </div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  <HEAD> <STYLE type="text/css">  </STYLE> </HEAD>  <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#660000" FACE="Times New Roman" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B> <A HREF="#" onmouseover=" document.images.button.src = down.src; window.status='Status text can be personalized to provide more useful information about a link'; return true; " onmouseout=" document.images.button.src = 'HTMLobj-3842/upbutton.jpg'; window.status=window.defaultStatus; return true; "> <IMG SRC="HTMLobj-3842/upbutton.jpg" WIDTH=108 HEIGHT=36 BORDER=0 ALIGN=bottom NAME="button"></A>   <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"></SCRIPT>  </B></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>