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Pedro Recruit
American sounding rocket. Air Launch Probe System (ALPS) and Fighter Launched Advanced Materials Experiment (FLAME) were both vehicles that used a Pedro first stage and a Recruit second stage. They were launched from an F-4 fighter aircraft.

AKA: Pedro. Status: Retired 1976. First Launch: 1975-02-04. Last Launch: 1976-01-26. Number: 8 . Thrust: 244.00 kN (54,853 lbf). Height: 7.80 m (25.50 ft). Diameter: 0.71 m (2.32 ft). Apogee: 20 km (12 mi).

The sight of the F-4 at takeoff would always get a lot of interest because of the size of the vehicle underneath. This launch concept is now used in the 1990s by the Pegasus family of launch vehicles with B-52 or jumbo jet aircraft instead of a fighter aircraft. FLAME and ALPS would climb to high altitude and plunge back into the atmosphere at hypersonic speed to conduct tests of materials, systems and hypersonic phenomena. This provided an inexpensive method of testing reentry bodies at realistic conditions.



Country: USA. Launch Sites: Wallops Island, Tonopah. Stages: 1.5KS35000, TX-261-3. Agency: NASA Wallops.

1975 February 4 - . Launch Site: Wallops Island. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit.
1975 February 27 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit.
1975 March 28 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit.
1975 April 18 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit. FAILURE: Failure.
1975 June 3 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit.
1975 June 4 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit. FAILURE: Failure.
1976 January 22 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit.
1976 January 26 - . Launch Site: Tonopah. Launch Platform: F-4. Launch Vehicle: Pedro Recruit.

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