SL812

BRITAIN'S FIRST SPACE ROCKET

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SL812
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1971 May 10
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SL812 is fired from Woomera. Launch was at night as this was a star pointing astronomy mission. (WRE\T.Ransome)

The Leicester stellar X-ray instrument as probably flown on SL812. (Adams, Janes & Whitford (1972a), figure 7)

Summary: SL812 was launched from Woomera, propelled by a Raven VI and Goldfinch boost, the payload head comprised a prototype star-pointing ACU with a University of Leicester stellar X-ray astronomy experiment.

Preparation: SL812 had been the subject of much pre-flight technical discussion on its aerodynamic stability, but the actual flight showed no signs of flutter.

Flight: The vehicle successfully propelled its heavy star-pointing ACU to 219 km (136 miles) with no sign of flight instability. Unfortunately this Phase 1 version of the Stage 5 ACU then failed to lock, see below.

Recovery: The parachute recovery system did not work.

Result: As noted above, the prototype star-seeking payload ACU (Attitude Control Unit) failed, as it did not acquire the correct target stars because of faults in the magnetometer & Moon sensor areas. Hence the University of Leicester astronomy experiment was unsuccessful.

Seq. Nos	Launch date	Ref. (sponsor) launch site	Config-uration	Apogee km (miles)	Experi-menter	Experiment	Res-ult
272 (15)	10 May 1971	SL812 (UK) Woomera	Star, Raven 6 + Goldfinch	219 (136)	University of Leicester	Astronomy – X-ray survey (variable spacing modulation collimator)	Vf

More:
(i) 'Britain's First Space Rocket' book: page 396
(ii) Pounds (1971), 'Measurement of the Polarisation, Spectra & Accurate Locations of Cosmic X-ray Sources', pp.165-166