Trailblazer 1g

Launch Successful

Launch Details

Date: 21 Apr 1961, 05:56 am UTC

Rocket: Trailblazer 1 (Trailblazer)

Provider: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Mission

Type: Test Flight

Orbit: Suborbital

Pad: Unknown Pad, Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA

Mission Description

An experiment where an actual 'artificial meteorite' was flown. This was a 5.8 g steel pellet, which was driven into the atmosphere at 6 km/sec by a 'seventh stage', a shaped charge that accelerated the pellet after burnout of the rocket's six stage. This experiment provided a known reference by which the size of actual meteoroids could be measured according to the luminance of their trails.