ASV1_v_bw_o_n (original 1963 press photo)
"Begun in 1960, ASSET was originally designed to verify the superalloy heat shield of the X-20 Dyna-Soar prior to full-scale manned flights. The vehicle's biconic shape and low delta wing were intended to represent Dyna-Soar's forward nose section, where the aerodynamic heating would be the most intense; in excess of an estimated 2200 °C (4,000 °F) at the nose cap. Following the X-20 program's cancellation in December 1963, completed ASSET vehicles were used in reentry heating and structural investigations with hopes that data gathered would be useful for the development of future space vehicles, such as the Space Shuttle.
Built by McDonnell, each vehicle was launched on a suborbital trajectory from Launch Complex 17B, Cape Canaveral, attaining speeds of up to 6,000 m/s before making a water landing in the South Atlantic near Ascension Island. Originally, a Scout launch vehicle had been planned for the tests, but this was changed after a large surplus of Thor and Thor-Delta missiles (returned from deployment in the United Kingdom) became available.
Of the six vehicles built, only one was successfully recovered and is currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
The photo is of the first ASSET sub-scale re-entry vehicle launched 18 September 1963. Unfortunately, the flotation equipment malfunctioned, preventing planned recovery."
Above per Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASSET_(spacecraft)
Interesting reading here, entertaining the idea of a "shadow/ulterior-motive" program of the USAF...cool...I think. Who knows how much farther we'd be along at this point if true & would have been pursued...either that or the fallout would’ve mutated us into C.H.U.D., or hastened our extinction...hard to tell with the human race:
www.astronautix.com/a/asset.html
5.75" x 9.5".
ASV1_v_bw_o_n (original 1963 press photo)
"Begun in 1960, ASSET was originally designed to verify the superalloy heat shield of the X-20 Dyna-Soar prior to full-scale manned flights. The vehicle's biconic shape and low delta wing were intended to represent Dyna-Soar's forward nose section, where the aerodynamic heating would be the most intense; in excess of an estimated 2200 °C (4,000 °F) at the nose cap. Following the X-20 program's cancellation in December 1963, completed ASSET vehicles were used in reentry heating and structural investigations with hopes that data gathered would be useful for the development of future space vehicles, such as the Space Shuttle.
Built by McDonnell, each vehicle was launched on a suborbital trajectory from Launch Complex 17B, Cape Canaveral, attaining speeds of up to 6,000 m/s before making a water landing in the South Atlantic near Ascension Island. Originally, a Scout launch vehicle had been planned for the tests, but this was changed after a large surplus of Thor and Thor-Delta missiles (returned from deployment in the United Kingdom) became available.
Of the six vehicles built, only one was successfully recovered and is currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
The photo is of the first ASSET sub-scale re-entry vehicle launched 18 September 1963. Unfortunately, the flotation equipment malfunctioned, preventing planned recovery."
Above per Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASSET_(spacecraft)
Interesting reading here, entertaining the idea of a "shadow/ulterior-motive" program of the USAF...cool...I think. Who knows how much farther we'd be along at this point if true & would have been pursued...either that or the fallout would’ve mutated us into C.H.U.D., or hastened our extinction...hard to tell with the human race:
www.astronautix.com/a/asset.html
5.75" x 9.5".