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From German V-2s to the Ariane rocket : 60 years of space research in Vernon What an unexpected
headline that many readers will find misleading! What, Vernon one of
the leading French and( perhaps) European centres of the space industry?
This must be a joke!
The story begins at the end of World War II. In May 1945, the French government decided to acquire the space technologies that the Germans had just developed, particularly that of the V-2 rocket. Within a few
months a first group of thirty German engineers working in this domain
was recruited. The problem then was to know where they could be established. It was finally decided that the Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aérodynamiques (LRBA) (Laboratory for Ballistic and Aerodynamics Research) which had just been created in May 1946 would settle in these unused buildings. A final impulse for the laboratory to start efficient work came with the arrival of a second group of German engineers and technicians recruited among the former staff of Peenemünde and Friedrichshafen. Among them, we can name Heinz Bringer, who will later invent the Viking engine for the Ariane booster, Helmut Haberman, a specialist of magnetic bearings, and Otto Muller, specialised in guiding systems. Notice that, contrary to what used to be said locally at the time, these men were not war prisoners forced into working for their former enemies, but regular employees with a work contract.
Earliest research (4211 and 4212 projects) In August 1946 the laboratory began developing a series of medium-range missiles derived from GermanV2 and A9 rockets. This was to have been the 'Super V-2' with a range of 3,600 km and a pay load of 1,000 kg. But as early as May 1947 the problems connected with the first stage were so considerable that the project was cancelled. However Super V-2 had shown the way and made it possible to move to a new project. Véronique The 'Direction
des Etudes et Fabrication d'Armement' (A government office in charge
of new weapons) decided to build a sounding rocket in order to study This was project 4213 called Veronique, short for VERnon-électrONIQUE. Numerous launches
were performed - with many failures at the beginning ! - in various
sites (Suippes, in central eastern France, Cardonnet, in southern France,
Hammaguir in the Sahara, finally Kourou in Guyana after 1968) and the
development program ended in 1975. (One of the first launches, the one
on April 6, 1951 was even performed in Vernon.)
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From Véronique to Ariane General de Gaulle
caused a fundamental change to the research programme when he decided
to develop long-range missiles for the French nuclear deterrent force.
The first flight (LO1), a qualification flight, took successfully place on December 24, 1979 and the first commercial flight in September 1982. As it passes to a much larger scale than the previous rockets, the Ariane launcher - or rather its different versions -seems to belong less and less to the Vernon site. Granted, all the parts of this rocket are made in numerous sites and countries; the engines, however, are designed, made and tested on the 116 hectares of the Vernon plant with a staff of about 1,200.
In 1973, France
was the only country, apart from the USA, that had ever built a cryogenic
engine powered with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Within the context of
the Ariane programme, three test stands were built in Vernon especially
for cryogenic technical tests. The first Viking engine, developed from 1973 onward, had a thrust of 40 tons and is at the origin of various successive versions, either more and more powerful or specially adapted for the rocket second stage.. In the summer of 1999, the Vernon SEP plant celebrated its 1,000th Viking engine.
But the engineers
had to look further and design the Vulcain engine for Ariane 5 main stage
and the HM7B for the upper stage. These cryogenic engines utilise liquid
oxygen and hydrogen as propellants, and of course, designing and optimisation
was carried out on the Vernon test stands.
In 2009, these engines will make way for the Vinci which is being developed at the moment. This engine features the ability to be re-ignited four times so as to place several satellites on different orbits. And, who knows, it might one day be re-ignited for a soft landing on the Moon… Have you noticed its name ? Vinci. Like all the other engines from the distant time of the Veronique rocket until today, its name begins with a V, a reminder of the name of the city where it is built.
Photo credits 1: CNES
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