The Sparta (or Redstone-Sparta, both from the acronym ‘Special Anti-missile Research Tests, Australia’) was a three-stage orbital-capable rocket launched between 1966 and 1967 from Woomera Test Range LA8 in Woomera, South Australia. Australia's first Earth satellite, WRESAT, was launched into a polar orbit on the final Sparta on November, 29 1967.
Ten Sparta rockets were developed, one of which was placed in reserve. The first nine launched as part of the joint United States–United Kingdom–Australian research program, known as Project SPARTA, aimed at better understanding re-entry phenomena from various model warheads, made as a follow-up to previous similar joint projects.
Sparta used modified surplus American Redstone rockets as its first stage, a Thiokol Antares 2 from the Scout rocket as a second stage, and a BE-3 Alcyone solid-propellant engine as a third stage. Both of these upper stages were spin-stabilized during launch to approximately 150 rpm prior to first stage separation.
In 1990, the first stage of the Sparta rocket that had launched WRESAT was recovered from the Simpson Desert after being found in searches by explorer Dick Smith the previous year.
Launches
The re-entry profiles of the SPARTA test vehicles would be closely monitored and examined from ground-based systems to aid in the development of anti-missile counter-weapon systems. For these launches, the BE-3 third stage was used to achieve higher descent speeds of around .