A form that accommodates the mess

Valentin Glushko eventually rose to become the most important man in Soviet space design, but as a penniless student at Leningrad State University in 1929 he worked up this oddity. The halo would generate electricity from solar power, which would vaporize mercury as propellant. Points for thinking outside the box, I guess.

( Image... )

Everyone knows that the USSR and US were the first two countries to launch their own rockets to orbit from their own territory. Third was France, if you consider Algeria to be French territory -- a vexed question even at the time their Diamant rocket lofted the Astérix satellite. The fourth is almost entirely unknown.

On November 29, 1967 the Australians launched their first satellite, WRESAT (Weapons Research Establishment Satellite) from Woomera in Western Australia. The launcher was a real oddball named Sparta. It consisted of three stages:

• 1st: A Redstone supplied by the US Army;
• 2nd: A solid stage from Thiokol in the States, the Antares-2
• 3rd: A native Australian kicker stage called the BE-3

It was good for just 45 kilograms to LEO, but that was all that was needed to get WRESAT into polar orbit. It stayed up until January 10 of the next year before coming down in the Atlantic Ocean.
( Images... )