AUSROC

Australian Space Research Institute

Sparta-Redstone
Von der Startbasis Woomera brachte Australien Ende 1967 seinen ersten und einzigen Erdsatelliten WRESAT in einen Erdorbit. Als Launcher diente eine innerhalb des militärischen US-Programms SPARTA (Special Anti-missile Research Tests Australia) eingesetzte und mit zwei Feststoff-Stufen aufgerüstete Redstone. Seit dem 28.11.1966 hatte die USArmy  bereits 9 suborbitale Starts mit diesem Aggregat durchgeführt.

AUSROC- III  &  -IV
This small educational launcher is proposed for development by the nonprofit A.S.R.I. (Australian Space Research Institute), based at Adelaide and cooperating with 10 universities in Australia.

The first rocket is Ausroc III which will be designed to launch a 150 kg payload to an altitude of 500 km on a controlled sub-orbital trajectory. The pressure fed LOX/Kerosene vehicle design will include an ablative rocket motor, hydraulic motor gimbal system, carbon fibre fairings, carbon filament wound tanks, inertial navigation, telemetry and a cold gas thruster roll control system. The payload will experience 6 minutes of micro-gravity time before descending to earth under a guided controllable ram-air parachute. Ausroc III will be 9.2 metres long, 750 mm diameter, 1.5 tonne and will develop 35 kN thrust for 80 seconds.
Ausroc IV is presently the final stage of the Ausroc Programs. It is a proposed micro-satellite orbital launch vehicle to be constructed by clustering four Ausroc III vehicles (as the first stage) around a fifth vehicle which forms the second stage. The third stage is to be a solid fuel rocket motor. Ausroc IV will place a 30 kg satellite into a 300 km polar orbit.
A significant amount of design and other work for Ausroc IV has been undertaken since 1990 in parallel with Ausroc III.
In 1996 ASRI acquired a number of wedgetail third stage satellite launch vehicle motors from overseas. These motors are ideally suited as the third stage of Ausroc IV or as the second stage of a higher performance version of Ausroc III. Development of a composite solid fuel propellant composition for the Wedgetail  motors  has been completed by Adelaide University.
Preliminary discussions with the UK based ASPIRESPACE organisation, which has similar objectives and charter to ASRI, have resulted in positive steps being made towards the collaborative development of Ausroc IV. Under the collaborative arrangement. ASPIRESPACE will provide the complete second stage module and assistance with the third stage hardware.