Black Knight was a British research ballistic missile, originally developed to test and verify the design of a re-entry vehicle for the Blue Streak missile. It is the United Kingdom's first indigenous expendable launch project.
Design work on what would become the Black Knight launch vehicle commenced in 1955, being performed by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) and British manufacturer Saunders-Roe. Saunders-Roe was the principal manufacturer for the Black Knight at its facility on the Isle of Wight. On 7 September 1958, the first Black Knight was launched at Woomera in Australia. Between 1958 and 1965, a total of 22 launch vehicles were fired, none of which having suffered any major failures.
Development
Origins
During the early 1950s, the British government had identified the need to develop its own series of ballistic missiles due to advances being made in this field, particularly by the Soviet Union and the United States. The ballistic missile was of critical importance to developing a more effective method of nuclear deterrence, replacing the role currently occupied by free-fall nuclear bombs and thus a reliance on ever-more complex, costly and capable aircraft. A British programme to develop such a missile, named Blue Streak, was promptly initiated; however, there were key questions over the then-relatively unknown scenario of what such a vehicle would encounter when attempting re-entry to the atmosphere, there were fears that such a vehicle might simply burn up like a meteor and therefore be unachievable.
To explore the phenomenon of atmospheric entry, it was decided that a dedicated research programme would be necessary in order to acquire research information that would shape the design of subsequent ballistic vehicles. Thus, in 1955, the Black Knight research vehicle has its inception for this purpose.
In 1955, due to its close relationship with the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), the British government awarded a contract to British manufacturer Saunders-Roe to produce the Black Knight. This contract involved a complete package for the design, development, manufacturing and testing of the vehicle, its flight control system, instrumentation, and supporting infrastructure for its operation.
According to author C.N Hill, the Black Knight programme ultimately fulfilled its prime objective of gathering information on rocket systems.
Further development and derivatives
The Black Knight was regarded as being a successful programme, having produced a relatively low cost and reliable rocket. While the Blue Streak missile had by this point been recognised as being too costly to serve as a competitive launcher in the face of international competition, the Black Knight was viewed as having the potential to be more cost-effective in this regard.
The RAE performed a multitude of studies on the subject of prospective derivatives of the Black Knight and its Gamma engine. Many of these focused on the possibility of extending the vehicle to operate a launcher for small satellites and proposed the use of liquid hydrogen-fuelled upper stage, which was comparatively expensive to develop while not providing much payload capacity without redesigning of the Black Knight vehicle itself as well.
One of the more ambitious proposals for an improved Black Knight involved substantially increasing the diameter of the tank from 36 inches to 54 inches, which had the effect of nearly doubling the rocket's fuel capacity, along with the adoption of a more powerful solid fuel second stage, named Kestrel. This envisioned more powerful Black Knight rocket was to have been used as part of a further set of planned experiments, which had been codenamed 'Crusade'. The vehicle was 35 feet long, had a 3-foot diameter, and a fully-fuelled weight of 12,800lb. In operation, the Black Knight could attain an altitude of up to 600 miles, and achieve a re-entry velocity of 12,000 feet per second. The engine ran a fuel comprising a combination of high-test peroxide (HTP) and kerosene; Saunders-Roe possessed prior experience of working with this fuel mixture as a result of the firm's work on the Saunders-Roe SR.53 rocket propelled interceptor aircraft.
Versions
There were five Black Knight design versions, depending on the engines used on the first and second stages.
- Black Knight BK10 is on display at the World Museum in Liverpool, England. It is suspended from the ceiling near the Planetarium, with other Black Knight components on display nearby.
- A Black Knight (probably BK22) is on display at the Woomera Aircraft & Missile Park.
Launches
Black Knight was launched twenty-two times from Woomera LA-5.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Black Knight launches
!Date
!Serial No.
!Version
!Launch site
!Mission
|-
|07.09.1958
|BK01
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|R&D
|-
|12.03.1959
|BK03
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|R&D
|-
|11.06.1959
|BK04
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|R&D
|-
|29.06.1959
|BK05
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|R&D
|-
|30.10.1959
|BK06
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|R&D
|-
|24.05.1960
|BK08
|Black Knight-201 Cuckoo-1B
|LA-5A F
|Project Gaslight (failure)
|-
|21.06.1960
|BK09
|Black Knight-201 Cuckoo-1B
|LA-5A
|Project Gaslight
|-
|25.07.1960
|BK07
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|Project Gaslight
|-
|07.02.1961
|BK13
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5A
|Project Gaslight
|-
|09.05.1961
|BK14
|Black Knight-201 Cuckoo-1B
|LA-5B
|Project Gaslight (failure)
|-
|07.06.1961
|BK17
|Black Knight-201 Cuckoo-1B
|LA-5
|Project Gaslight (failure)
|-
|01.05.1962
|BK15
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5
|Project Gaslight
|-
|24.08.1962
|BK16
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-1B
|LA-5
|Project Gaslight
|-
|29.11.1962
|BK18
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-1B
|LA-5
|Project Gaslight
|-
|17.10.1963
|BK11
|Black Knight-201
|LA-5
|ELDO Blue Streak Test
|-
|11.03.1964
|BK12
|Black Knight-201 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|-
|05.08.1964
|BK19
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|-
|06.11.1964
|BK20
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|-
|21.04.1965
|BK21
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|-
|26.07.1965
|BK23
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|-
|28.09.1965
|BK24
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|-
|25.11.1965
|BK25
|Black Knight-301 Cuckoo-2
|LA-5
|Project Dazzle
|}
See also
- Rainbow Codes
- Black Arrow
- Blue Streak
- Skylark
References
Citations
Bibliography
- Hill, C.N. A Vertical Empire: The History of the UK Rocket and Space Programme, 1950–1971. World Scientific, 2001. .
- Laycock, Stuart and Philip Laycock. Unexpected Britain. Amberley Publishing Limited, 2014. .
- Massie, Harri and M. O. Robins. "History of British Space Science." Cambridge University Press, 1986. .
- Paine, Robin and Roger Syms. On a Cushion of Air. Robin Paine, 2012. .
- Stocker, Jeremy. Britain and Ballistic Missile Defence, 1942–2002. Routledge, 2004. .
- Twigge, Stephen Robert. The Early Development of Guided Weapons in the United Kingdom, 1940–1960. Taylor & Francis, 1993. .
External links
- a spaceuk.org link
- BBC Radio 4 – The Archive Hour – "Britain's Space Race". 11 August 2007.
- a cutaway drawing of the Black Knight