HARP (High Altitude Research Project)
A program to study the upper atmosphere using instrumented projectiles shot
from a cannon, conducted in the 1960s by researchers at McGill University,
Montreal. The projectiles were cylindrical finned missiles, 20 cm wide and
1.7 m long, with masses of 80–215 kg called Martlets, from an old
name for the martin bird which appears on McGill's shield. The cannon that
propelled the Martlets was built by Canadian engineer Gerald Bull
from two ex-United States Navy 16-inch- (41-cm-) caliber cannon connected
end-to-end. Located on the island of Barbados, it fired almost vertically,
out over the Atlantic. Inside the barrel of the cannon, a Martlet was surrounded
by a machined wooden casing known as a sabot
which traveled up the 16-m-long barrel at launch and then split apart as
the Martlet headed upward at about 1.5 km/s having undergone an acceleration
of 25,000g. Each shot produced a huge explosion that could be heard
all over Barbados and a plume of fire rising hundreds of meters into the
air. The Martlets carried payloads of metal chaff, chemical smoke, or meteorological
balloons and were fitted with telemetry antennas for tracking their flight.
By the end of 1965, HARP had fired more than a hundred missiles to heights
of over 80 km. In Nov. 19, 1966, the Army Ballistics Research Laboratory
used a HARP gun to launch an 84-kg Martlet to an altitude of 179 km –
a world record for a fired projectile that still stands.
Related entry
• space cannon
Related category
• BALLISTICS
• CANADA
IN SPACE
Also on this site:
Encyclopedia
of Alternative Energy & Sustainable Living
Encyclopedia
of History
BACK TO TOP
|
