Boosted Arcas Explained

Boosted Arcas is the designation of an American sounding rocket, in which an Arcas rocket^[1] was boosted using a first stage to improve the altitude and payload.

Variants of the Boosted Arcas were Boosted Arcas, Sparrow Arcas, Sidewinder Arcas, and Boosted Arcas II.^[2]

• The Boosted Arcas consists of a first stage of an Atlantic Richfield booster^[3] using a 0.8-KS-2700 solid propellant engine.
• The Sparrow-Arcas (or "Sparrow-HV Arcas") booster was based on the liquid-propellant AIM-7D Sparrow missile as a first stage.
• The Sidewinder-Arcas (or "Sidewinder-HV Arcas") used the solid-propellant AIM-9B Sidewinder missile as a first-stage.
• The Boosted Arcas 2 used a MARC 42A1 booster.^[4]

The maximum altitude of the Boosted Arcas amounts to 50 km, the takeoff thrust 1.00 kN, the diameter 0.11 m and the length 3.40 m. The Boosted Arcas was launched 78 times between 1963 and 1972.

Notes and References

1. Andreas Parsch, "PWN-6", Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles. Retrieved 2018-03-22.
2. Bruce Bollerman, A Study of 30 km to 200 Km Meteorological Rocket sounding systems, Volume 1, Chapter 6.3.6, "Boosted Arcas,"' NASA Report CR-1529, May 1970, page 311-320. Retrieved 2018-03-22.
3. Web site: Boosted Arcas . https://web.archive.org/web/20161228002821/http://astronautix.com/b/boostedarcas.html . dead . December 28, 2016 . . 2018-03-22 .
4. Web site: Boosted Arcas 2 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161227211508/http://astronautix.com/b/boostedarcas2.html . dead . December 27, 2016 . Encyclopedia Astronautica . 2018-03-22 .