Abstract
Although rockets have been in use for a thousand years, it was only 60 years ago when concrete plans were made to transport a package of scientific instruments to high altitudes with a rocket. In 1942, Professor Erich Regener in Stuttgart, Germany, a specialist in atmospheric research, ozone physics, ultraviolet spectroscopy, and cosmic rays, and Wernher von Braun, director of the Peenemünde Rocket Research and Development Center, jointly began to design a large scientific payload for the empty warhead of an A-4 test rocket to be launched into a near-vertical trajectory from the “Greifswalder Oie,” a small island near Peenemünde. Regener and von Braun had worked together before on a project to try out radio communication between the ground and a transponder carried aloft with a high-altitude balloon.Instruments for the capsule were built and installed in a large aluminum container, called a “Regener Tonne” (Regener barrel). It contained pressure and density gauges, a UV spectrograph with quartz optics to determine the ozone content of the atmosphere, thermal sensors, Containers for atmospheric samples to be taken during the parachute descent of the capsule at various altitudes, instruments to measure ion densities in the atmosphere, drum recorders, radio receivers and transmitters, and a parachute that unfolded undcr the stiffening force of pressurized tubes.
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Stuhlinger, E. (2001). Enabling technology for space transportation. In: Bleeker, J.A.M., Geiss, J., Huber, M.C.E. (eds) The Century of Space Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0320-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0320-9_3
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