KSAT rocket launches

10½- to 11-foot tall rockets have been seen flying through the South Texas skies.  Later versions carried ATV and GPS payloads in both the top and bottom sections.  After a seven-second engine burn, these rockets could reach just over 400 MPH.  They would coast approximately 23 seconds longer before reaching apogee.  Altitudes of 7,000 feet could be attained.

As you might well imagine, FAA waivers were filed well in advance, NOTAMs to Airmen were posted, and phone calls to Houston Center were made just minutes before each flight.  Air Traffic Control checked radar scopes and gave a clearance void time  (I do believe new national security guidelines have made these big rocket flights part of the Good Ol' Days.  We do still have photos and video clips that were recorded at multiple launch dates and sites, as well as from various model aircraft flights.  Now those RC airplane videos can be just like roller coaster rides - hihi.)

To put this photograph into perspective, the two receptacles in the lower right corner are 25 feet tall; three of us are standing on them).  The one ATV camera onboard this earlier flight had a perpendicular view and reported some great video back to the pad.  In viewing the video you can "feel" the rocket spin on its axis, experience a brief "white out" as it punches through the clouds, and examine a fair bit of countryside as it slowly parachutes downward.

(photo by Kathy Cerwin, KB5KYY, 1996)

And quite often as many as 120 smaller rockets can fly in a day's time; some individually, some in heats of eight or ten rockets at once