Skylark: Sounding Space

A 1960s technical documentary which opens with footage of a yacht sounding its way into a harbour, followed by the launch of a Skylark sounding rocket. The rest of the film is arranged as follows: an explanation of how sounding rockets are used to survey the region between the reaches of balloons and satellites - used as an example is the S26 rocket, built for ESRO for a campaign scheduled to take place in 1967 in which it will carry experiments to determine the ionisation of the upper atmosphere and to monitor the Sun's radiation; the fuel mixture used in S26 rockets, footage from Royal Ordnance factory at Bridgewater; remote filling of rocket motor case, monitoring by closed-circuit television; attachment of throat and painting of motors; test-firing of motor; payload attachment ring, attachment of base ring, wiring of equipment bays, bays locked together, calibration of sun-sensor unit; testing of deployment of expanding booms, various sensing electrodes; aerial system covered by glass fibre nosecone; test

Not available