arranges clear for launch
barring system armed it is may 9 1990
the place is Vandenberg Air Force Base
in California
operations manager Larry tant is
counting down to liftoff of the 113th
flight of one of the United States most
reliable launch vehicle systems scouting
the mission is a success success comes
as no surprise to the planners designers
engineers and controllers of scout
success is the result of over 30 years
of striving for letter-perfect
performance
the story of scout is little known
outside of NASA circles but it's a story
worth knowing it's a story of triumph
over adversity of teamwork and of the
pursuit of excellence
in the early decades of the 20th century
the study of flight is the work of the
National Advisory Committee on
Aeronautics or NACA
this work is done at the Langley
aeronautical laboratory in Hampton
Virginia Langley engineers study the
phenomena of drag and of lift they study
the shape of wings and how to cool
aircraft engines and flight many Langley
innovations directly contribute to
improvements in airplane design in world
war ii in the period after the war the
challenge in aerodynamics is to break
the so-called sound barrier gathering
aerodynamic data at high speeds is a
complicated problem one approach to a
solution is to improve the design of
existing wind tunnels another is to
conduct tests of airplane configurations
on rockets these tests are conducted by
the pilotless research aircraft division
or PA Rd they are launched from the NACA
s Wallops Island Virginia test facility
it was basically a technique to verify
some of the parameters that were
obtained the wind tunnels of various
airplanes in that transonic speed range
it is 1957 as technology advances and
the problems of supersonic flight are
resolved the engineers of PA Rd are
tantalized by the prospect of achieving
orbit then the Soviet Union startles the
world by launching the first satellite
into outer space Sputnik
this technological achievement startles
the world and surprises everyone
including Langley's rocket specialists
you gotta respect their accomplishment
in its own right disappointed you didn't
do it yourself it forces you to think at
a whole new level of exploration and
science that heretofore was beyond
consideration with us it was
disappointment that we weren't there
first of course but it was also in a
sense an assurance that we were on the
right track that boy we really would get
supported from now on because this was
important and it was obviously it was
important that the United States would
continue and happen and we were part of
that game the United States responds by
mounting a comprehensive program of
missile development and space
exploration as part of its response the
nation needs a relatively inexpensive
quickly produced rocket to launch small
research experiments the engineers at PA
Rd are asked to design the new rocket
solid-fueled rocket have already always
had the advantage over liquid fuels as
more simplicity is consumed and cost and
possibly even reliability so it was
decided that Scout would use all solid
for falchion and what is a matter of
fact to the extent possible use existing
solid fuel Rockets there's a various
stages with launch vehicle so it was a
natural extension of the of their work
that was going on in PA our deal
solid rockets in 1958 President
Eisenhower signs the National
Aeronautics and Space Act into law this
act dissolves the NACA
taking its place is the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration the
agency that is charged with running the
space race for the United States the
need to save time and money means that
the rocket must be built with
off-the-shelf hardware designers select
from an inventory of solid fuel rocket
motors produced for the military
the first-stage algol motor is a
combination of the jupiter senior and
propellant from the Navy Polaris the
second stage cast or comes from the Army
sergeant and the third and fourth stage
motors are designed by Langley engineers
who adapt a version of the Navy Vanguard
frenzy because we were thrown into it
especially you got to remember I was a
young fella we were thrown into
something that never been done before
and we would post a lot of dead ends if
you will in a way it was a kind of a
race to match the Russians but more
importantly it was a it was to prove
something to ourselves people did work
hard and they were selfless about
helping each other and there's no
distinction drawn between government and
contractor people on the job
everybody's on this team and they did
what they had to do without regard to
the color of their badge in 1959 NASA
Langley Awards contracts for control and
guidance systems Chance Vought aircraft
now LTV missile and electronics group of
Dallas wins the bid on the contract to
develop the airframe and launcher this
begins a partnership between NASA
Langley and LTV that will last for over
30 years we all underestimated the
magnitude of the job at that time but we
all had a real positive aggressive
attitude that we would get it done in a
race against the calendar this is the
vehicle that NASA and its contractors
are working overtime to build in its
original configuration Scout is designed
to place 130 pound payloads into a 300
mile orbit above the earth it will later
be able to carry a 450 pound
it consists of four solid propulsion
rockets joined by transition sections
containing guidance ignition spin up
motors and separation sections needed
for flight the heat shield covering the
fourth stage and payload section is made
of cork and fiberglass laminate the
Scout will fly several missions with an
optional fifth stage Scout stands some
75 feet tall and weighs over 48,000
pounds a comparatively small vehicle
that will accomplish much the first test
flight of scout takes place on July 1st
1960 this mission is designed as a probe
and carries a 193 pound
Langley Research Center payload the
Scout also carries another new feature
on board a destruct capability to be
used in the event the rocket goes off
course and in dangers populated areas
our launch starts well yet trouble
arises when the radar tracking indicates
that the rocket is off-course the Range
Safety Officer orders the radio command
to destroy the rocket after reaching an
altitude of 860 miles the first Scout
falls into the Atlantic only later will
the scout team learned that the failure
is with the ground tracking system
rather than the rocket that was a
crushing blow to have destroyed a
vehicle that was doing exactly what had
probe programmed to do but just in the
but they kicked ashcans and cussed the
lunch the Range Safety Officer and cried
and just went away to be alone then and
Woodward acted like they'd lost a child
we wouldn't learn anything if we didn't
have problems and I think if that's the
basic I think that's basic in
engineering training is that you you try
something and if it works it's fine if
it doesn't work but the problem was this
is how we learn this is the process the
first fully successful launch of scout
takes place three years after Sputnik
one carrying a 78 pound probe scout test
two reaches an altitude of 3,500 miles
before returning to Earth at this point
Scout designers and engineers believe
the testing is complete and that the
missile is ready to start service Scout
is designed to launch three types of
missions to place satellites in Earth
orbit to test heat-resistant materials
and to launch space probes Scouts are
launched from Wallops Island and from
the Western Test range at Vandenberg Air
Force Base in California the infancy of
the space age is a time of exhilarating
success and a heart-rending failure
scout test three the first orbital
attempt
three of the first six flights are
failures in one five-month period in
1962 there are three failures in four
launches a NASA investigation finds
fault with electrical systems the heat
shield design and ignition systems Scout
program was done in Iraq
unquestionably everything was running
behind schedule and there was pressure
on NASA to perform the Space Act had
been passed and and NASA was supposed to
be gearing up to do a job and scope was
part of that job and so there was very
definitely was pressure to do it in a
hurry
too much of a hurry and not enough
emphasis on properly qualifying and
really getting ready for inoculation the
flight of scout 1:10 in June of 1963
symbolizes those problems at two and a
half seconds after liftoff a flame
appears above the first stage fins two
seconds later the algal stage is
engulfed by fire it's obvious that
something terrible had happened to tell
it from the communications of the plane
safety then I burn through the first
stage in awesome
I believe about 15 seconds in the paper
and the vehicle went through see why all
the gyrations in it got about 300 feet I
broke into three parts the first stage
went one direction in the second stage
another third and fourth fell more or
less back on the launch pad and burned
was a disaster I headed up a recovery
team the next morning that was out
slogging through the salt marsh
gathering up pieces and bits and parts
to see if we could put the story back
together as to what had gone wrong and
someone had parked a small car inside of
one of the simply buildings and it just
so happened that a flaming piece of
green I guess had come down and gone
through the roof of that building and it
was a small sports car with a canvas top
I guess and that grain had landed right
in the front seat of that car I guess
I'm just kind of burnt to a crisp NASA
launches another investigation a
seven-man review committee finds flaws
in a rocket nozzle flaws that had gone
undetected during production and testing
NASA imposes a 3-month moratorium on the
launch schedule to study the launch data
repeated investigations of the Rockets
subsystems revealed that failure is
always caused by a different problem
that in itself it's the big problem we
never had the same failure twice but it
was clear from the early record of scout
that there were there were enough
miscellaneous failures that we had to
sit down and and and relook at this
thing seriously and they did things
differently at Wallops Island than they
did Western Test range the Air Force had
their own way of doing things the
contract had different ways and there
was a problem of coordinating that back
in those days in the early days of the
program if you needed a part you would
do a little what they call midnight
requisition you would go get the part
from the spare vehicle in inventory well
that was obviously one of the
shortcomings of the system people were
robbing Peter to pay Paul and in the end
result was they had an unsuccessful
vehicle
there simply was not a good standardized
vehicle configuration and checkout
procedures which were needed to have a
successful vehicle
I remember that I sat down and and and
did some deep thinking about what it
would how we ought to take and
restructure a look at this air at this
rocket this launch vehicle and I wrote a
specification which ultimately became
the spec for the recertification program
that was a was a tiger team approach to
completely revising the way we handled
the vehicle and and in standardizing the
process to the ultimate degree the scout
team mounts an attack on these problems
with a 14-month reliability improvement
program a recertification of the rocket
all 27 of the scouts in the inventory
are returned to Dallas to be taken apart
and inspected weld seems our x-rayed and
solder joints are checked under
microscopes everything is standardized
test equipment procedures even the cable
lengths in watts labs will be matched at
the launch sites the launch countdown
now covers more than 800 checklist items
special Tiger teams are formed and
assigned to monitor each vehicle
processed to enforce compliance with the
new standards no Scout will leave Dallas
until inspectors make a complete flight
worthiness review of the vehicle and
give it a clean bill of health
no scout will ever fly again without
being certified by this rigorous process
of quality control
the passion for reliability for zero
defects is put to a test on December
19th 1963
the launch of Scout 122 R is a success
the relief among the Scout crew is
evident it's kind of relief that the
pressure isn't on you anymore to to go
into failure reviews and go into you
know overtime weekends away from your
family things like that
and I think it's very exhilarating I
think the results speak for themselves
we we went on a upward motion of
successes in a period between 1964 and
1966 scout establishes a record of 22
consecutive successful launches and
scout becomes a fully operational launch
vehicle 15 of the 16 recertified rockets
are successful
now we really had the kind of vehicle
which setup reliable it was still simple
and inexpensive we could launch him
quickly it took about six weeks I think
the process in the field and we were
launching up to ten a year with no
problem
we were doing the job we set out for
didn't scouts reliability also stems
from a sense of teamwork and cooperation
between NASA and its prime contractor on
the program this language staff which
were excellent engineers and were the
kind of guys that get consumed by a
project they work hard to accomplish it
they have high ideals and high
aspirations they know how to work with
each other to get a job done and they
and that enthusiasm and that honesty
found itself reflected in the
contractors attitude for just a very
close-knit dedicated group and we had a
lot of pride in what we're doing and we
were like brothers we were very very
much more liable to work together than
we were to work apart is the your
counterpart in the government would have
a problem or a question he would contact
you on the telephone and he would be
able to say a mutual agreement or
solution to that problem and end result
would be that the program would be much
better off for having experienced this
degree of cooperation between between
the two individuals who had the task
improvements in rocket motors enable the
Scout to carry larger payloads the
scouts weight carrying capability
increases by several times while costs
remain low now the performance is four
or five times what it was beginning but
controlled costs the cranking inflation
as measured by the consumer price index
the Scout costs less today than it did
in 1958 taking note of the success and
economy of scout other countries seek
out the Scout to assist them in their
fledgling space efforts the scouts honor
role includes 23 satellites launched for
international space organizations
payloads are launched for the European
Space Research Organization for Germany
for the Netherlands for friends and for
the United Kingdom after establishing a
record full reliability that includes 37
successful launches in a row the scout
team celebrates its 100th launch the UK
six spacecraft launch was the 100th
Scout the launch and of course it was
successful it was in June 2nd 1979 I
believe there was a lot of PR made over
because of the hunt it's launched
locally there were a lot of people that
went to see the launch it was at Wallops
night launch so there was a lot of
fanfare a lot of notoriety throughout
its 30-year history Scout is involved
with many NASA firsts one of the most
internationally recognized projects for
Scout is the San Marco project in May of
1961 Italy and the United States enter
an agreement by which NASA agrees to
supply launch vehicles tracking and
training to Italian launch teams the
Italians are to provide the launch
complex personnel and satellites the
italians propose an unusual launch site
two platforms in in Guana bay anchored
three miles off the coast of Kenya in
international waters this third launch
site provides an equatorial orbit to the
Scout Program the reason for choosing to
establish this type of launcher was that
the Italian government didn't want to go
through the political whatever of
reaching agreements with a foreign
government to establish a launch base in
that territory but they wanted
equatorial orbit and to achieve the
equatorial orbit you have to launch from
very near the equator eventually the
extent of the the tora tora lemon that
was in king anyway then there was no
problem these people sitting right there
on the Indian Ocean at least in the
early days 1967 for example I just
wonder how many people in the world I've
ever seen a liftoff
their front porches this mission
launched on March 25th 1988 is a success
as are all seven other launches from San
Marco aboard scout when we had that
string of 3738 in a row it was like
being on a winnin ball team with no
competition I mean everybody was just
tickled to death and and to add to the
success ratio because we had a few bad
ones to overcome you know but since
research we had a real good success
ratio and and you could actually see the
product of your effort in improving
scout the scout became so reliable that
mission planners could take it for
granted they focused on the science of
the satellite payload rather than its
transportation the pride that scout
people feel about the program comes not
only from their successful launch record
but also from the role that Scout
payloads have played in the advancement
of science scout missions studied the
Van Allen radiation belt that encircles
the earth and scout payloads confirmed
the existence of the first black hole in
space early scout missions involved
research into the problems of manned
flight in space to determine which
materials could best withstand the heat
of reentry scout launched experiments as
high as 135 miles then tilted downward
and fired its third and fourth stages
toward earth so they would reach speeds
of 18,000 miles per hour through the
upper atmosphere the output of these
missions contributed directly to the
later success of Mercury Gemini and
Apollo programs the only satellite
launched by scout to ever carrying a
living thing was placed into orbit on
November 9th 1970 the orbiting frog o
tilith carrying two male bullfrogs was
placed into orbit to investigate the
effects of space on the inner ear to try
to understand the causes of space
sickness
scout is the unsung hero of space it
happens to be NASA's smallest launch
vehicle and it does not receive the the
same level of notoriety that you would
with you know with larger with larger
systems but over the years has proven to
be a very reliable consistent performing
workhorse for the agency other Scout
missions dealt with pure research of
outer space phenomena one mission
carried an atomic clock five hundred
times more accurate than any
ground-based time measuring instrument
this clock was compared to ground clocks
to see if it would run faster went
further from the Earth's gravity this
mission confirmed Einstein's
gravitational and relativity theories of
seventy years earlier scout also
launched the Navy's transit satellites
which provide accurate navigation to the
fleet and to over 6,000 commercial
enterprises and foreign countries
in the late 1970s NASA's policymakers
decided to launch all future NASA
satellites on the space shuttle and
abolish all expendable launch vehicles
but the failure of challenger in 1986
reversed that policy while the shuttle
was grounded it was obvious that the
space program needed more launch
capability in response NASA established
the mixed fleet concept under the new
plan NASA will obtain launch services
from commercial firms to launch
government payloads these directives
mean changes for Scout the program as we
know it is ending it essentially is what
it means the the fact that there's so
few vehicles left doesn't give the vote
people and they got heard people a time
to develop the same type of a working
relationship as we did and then once
those five vehicles are gone is back to
the to the launch services concept so
the launch vehicle business as we knew
it is essentially ended on January 1st
1991 Langley turned the scout program
over to NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center
LTV Corporation will continue to market
Scout as a commercial launch vehicle
Goddard will launch the remaining
government-owned Rockets this salute to
scout and Langley marks the end of an
era
and it gives veterans of the program a
chance to remember we all had one common
goal a teamwork also was resolved a
mutual respect for each other
it wasn't an adversity bursary type
situation where I was always not
knocking your heads it was strictly a
job that had to be done and done in the
most reliable manner I don't think
there's ever been
another project our government and
contractor people work together as
closely as they did it was
partly I guess it was the nature of the
program the the goal the the job that we
were charged to do I mean to that it was
to be an inexpensive rocket used by a
lot of people it it was a goal that you
could put your heart into there's
something about the program you work it
for a little while and you get involved
in it and then when that happens you
lose the the lines of you know whether
your agency or whether your LTV or
whether your Air Force you become a
scout person Scout success rate of 96%
has earned this workhorse a spot in the
National Air and Space Museum where it
stands beside other veterans of
America's space program such as Jupiter
aerobee and Vanguard over 700 people
have worked on the scout program during
the past 32 years these Scout people
created a launch vehicle that set a
standard for productivity and
reliability
they established uncompromising
standards of exactness they set records
for success they were unwavering in the
pursuit of excellence and in
accomplishing these things they created
an atmosphere of teamwork and mutual
respect that all of those who worked on
scout will never forget
the NASA space program has given us
images that have become imprinted on the
national consciousness as icons of
success here is one more to consider the
unsung hero of space
you