Atlas-Centaur
Sign in to saveThe Atlas-Centaur was a United States expendable launch vehicle derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. The vehicle featured a Centaur upper stage, the first such stage to use high-performance liquid hydrogen as fuel. Launches were conducted from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. After a strenuous flight test program, Atlas-Centaur went on to launch several crucial spaceflight missions for the United States, including Surveyor 1, and Pioneer 10/11. The vehicle would be continuously developed and improved into the 1990s, with the last direct descendan
Key facts
- Rocket.name
- Atlas-Centaur
- Rocket.image
- Surveyor 1 launch.jpg
- Rocket.caption
- An Atlas-Centaur launching Surveyor 1 (1966)
- Rocket.manufacturer
- Convair Division ofGeneral Dynamics
- Rocket.function
- Expendable launch system
- Rocket.country origin
- United States
- Rocket.status
- Retired
- Rocket.sites
- Cape Canaveral, LC-36
- Rocket.fail
- 13
- Rocket.success
- 181
- Rocket.partial
- 3
- Rocket.launches
- 197
- Rocket.first
- 8 May 1962
- Rocket.last
- 31 August 2004
via Wikipedia infobox
~24 min read
Encyclopedic overview
21 sectionsContents
- Early development
- Technical
- Program
- Research and development (R/D) flights
- First flight
- Failure
- Investigation
- Second flight
- Third flight
- Fourth flight
- Fifth flight
- Failure
- Investigation
- Later flights
- Operational launches
- AC-33 failure
- AC-43 failure
- AC-67 failure
- Variants
- References
- External links
The Atlas-Centaur was a United States expendable launch vehicle derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. The vehicle featured a Centaur upper stage, the first such stage to use high-performance liquid hydrogen as fuel. Launches were conducted from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. After a strenuous flight test program, Atlas-Centaur went on to launch several crucial spaceflight missions for the United States, including Surveyor 1, and Pioneer 10/11. The vehicle would be continuously developed and improved into the 1990s, with the last direct descendant being the highly successful Atlas II.
== Early development == Convair, the manufacturer of the Atlas, developed the Centaur upper stage specifically for that booster, sharing its pressure-stabilized tank structure.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Atlas-Centaur” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.