Rocks and Rockets

Another cloudy day with rain on & off, but a little warmer (high of 50). So, I decided to take a walk down to the rocket launch area, then along the river to look for some interesting rocks. The sandy soil holds a variety of rocks left by glaciers long ago, much like where I'm from in upstate NY.

First, I wandered around the rocket launch complex and took a bunch of pictures (with captions at the bottom). The Kiruna launch site was opened in 1966 and over 450 rockets have been launched here. The Maxus rocket is the largest launched at Esrange, and was developed for microgravity experiments. The motor is a Castor 4B, made by Thiokol in the US (1m in diameter, 9m long, all steel, 100K lbs. thrust, and >25 million N-secs, for you rocket geeks!). The Skylarks and Orions were launched here regularly. Also, the small 4" Super Loki Dart rocket is common at Esrange. (Can anyone identify this old rocket?)

Here's a view of the large enclosed launch tower. The most recent launch damaged the back of the building when the blast doors weren't fully open (so they say!). There's another assembly building with mobile launchers for the medium rocket. One of the small launchers for the Super Loki was made in 1942.

I continued on further into the woods and along the fenceline near the river and picked up about 30 small rocks of different varieties. As you can see in this picture, there are still patches of snow. And the high latitude (almost 68 degrees North) gives long shadows even in the early afternoon near the end of May.

Now, let's see if the weather clears up so we can get something off the ground.