Black Arrow - Launches

Launches

Four Black Arrows were launched between 1969 and 1971. The first two launches were demonstration flights, with battleship third stages and a boilerplate payload. On the first flight an electrical fault caused a pair of first stage combustion chambers to pivot back and forth. Before it cleared the launch pad, the rocket was rolling erratically, and about a minute later it began to disintegrate. After the first stage engine failed, and the rocket began to fall back to earth, it was destroyed by range safety. The second launch was successful. The first all-up launch on 2 September 1970 was the third launch of the Black Arrow, and Britain's first attempt to launch a satellite. The launch failed due to a leak in the second stage oxidiser pressurisation system, which caused it to cut out early. The third stage fired, but the rocket did not reach orbit, and re-entered over the Gulf of Carpentaria. The fourth launch successfully orbited the Prospero satellite, making the United Kingdom the sixth nation to place a satellite into orbit by means of an indigenously developed carrier rocket. The satellite, also known as X-3, was named Prospero after the character Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. The name was chosen as a reference to events in the play, in which Prospero, a sorcerer, gives up his powers. Prior to the cancellation of the Black Arrow programme, the satellite was to be named after Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

All four launches were conducted from Launch Area 5B at the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia, which had previously been used as a test site for the Black Knight rocket. During the development programme, launch sites in Barbados, Uist and Norfolk were also considered. The launch sites at Uist and Norfolk were rejected because the former was too remote, while there was a risk that a rocket launched from the latter might drop spent stages on an oil rig in the North Sea.