Scout Transport

The Concept of Air Transportability

The concept of air transportability for the fully-assembled Scout will receive a final evaluation during the operation. On July 27* the assembled vehicle with live motors and its transporter went through the simulated airlift from Wallops. An Air Force C-133 exposed it to an airlift flight environment anticipated during delivery to a launch site. Complete launch readiness checks have been repeated since the flight. NASA officials in charge of the Scout program hope to realize economic and reliability benefits by processing all Scout vehicles at a single location using recently improved procedures, then airlifting the complete vehicles on their transporters to any launch site. A preliminary air transportability test was made in May 1964, with a Scout fitted with dummy motors. Good results obtained in that test led to last week's flight with the complete vehicle

Fully assembled four-stage Scout launch vehicle leaves the NASA Wallops Island launch area on special trailer en route to airfield.

Both the 72-foot Scout and its 80-foot trailer, weighing a total of 70,000 pounds, were placed aboard a C-133 transport provided by the Air Force and flown to Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, Va. It is the first time a fully assembled Scout had been transported by air.

Purpose was to test procedures being considered for further improving the efficiency and reliability of launch vehicle operations.

NASA and Air Force Photos from the Collection of CS Hammer