Eight miles from Hengistbury Head, directly across the Solent lie the white chalk cliffs of the Isle of Wight with the Needles Light House marking the
western most end of the Island. The southern area of this western tip of the Isle of Wight, an area known as High Down, was, not so long ago,
a top secret rocket testing site. It was finally closed in 1971 after the cancellation of Britains independant satellite launch program
Today few people know that the UK had a satellite launch program, let alone that a satellite was successfully launched using an innovative small rocket called Black Arrow.
All of the launch vehicles for the Black Arrow program were "live" tested at High Down, just across the Solent from Hengistbury Head.
No rockets ever left the launch pad at High Down but were shipped to Woomera in South Australia for launch.
Britain is the only country in the world to have developed a successful satellite launch capability and then abandoned it
The High Down Rocket Testing Site and the Needles from Google Earth
The test gantry Pads are bottom right.
High Down was first built to test Black Knight rockets. These were research rockets being used to evaluate the design of the re-entry vehicle for a
nuclear warhead in the late 50's and early 60's.
The Black Knight rocket used a mix of Hydrogen Peroxide and Kerosene for fuel. Hydrogen Peroxide first came to promenence in the second world war
as part of the fuel used by the German Me163 Komet Rocket fighter (the Germans called Hydrogen Peroxide T-Stoff).
After the war, the British took to developing a range of vehicles that used Hydrogen Peroxide as the oxygen producing element of the fueling system.
These vehicle ranged from submarines, torpedoes, rocket fighters (example, the SR53, also developed on the Isle of Wight) and research rockets such as
Black Knight.
The very high strength Hydrogen Peroxide used was 85% pure and is called HTP (High Test Peroxide). It is highly dangerous, although arguably less so than most
rocket fuels. Weak Hydrogen Peroxide (3%) is commonly used to bleach hair. Hydrogen Peroxide has recently acquired some notoriety as part of a a terrorist
explosive. Islamic extremists tried to use it as part of their bomb equipment in London.
The Black Knight research rocket had performed impeccably with no failures.
Due to this success, a decision was made to develop a cheap, low cost satellite launch system using the technology originally developed for the
Black Knight. So was born the Black Arrow commercial satellite launcher.
Below are a set of 3 excellent short YouTube videos by Joe Myerscough and Mat Stracy that detail the history of Black Arrow with interviews and recollections from those involved.
There are also many impressive views of High Down and rocket launches and rocket tests (particularly Black Arrow)
(Note: Single click to view the small video, double click to open a new window to view larger video)
Three videos by Joe Myerscough and Mat Stracy about the Black Arrow project and High Down.
A test at High Down (either Black Knight or Black Arrow) involved clamping the rocket to its base. The engines were fired and the escaping hot gases were directed
down blast chutes through casquading water, the result was that huge quantities of steam were thrown up and drifted away with the wind. Often the Needles were
enveloped in a cloud of steam.
I remember seeing and hearing a number of High Down tests around 1968-1970 from the beach at Mudeford (a distance of about 9 miles).
Of course I didn't actually know at the time what these were, but this is typically what happened.
On one occasion, I think it was early spring 1969 or 1970 I was looking over to the Needles. A white cloud, somewhat like a fog bank drifted down westward from behind Isle of Wight and
enveloped the Needles. While it was drifting down there came the roar of the rocket engines. Although I am (and was) a bit of an aircraft buff, the sound of the rockets was sufficiently different
from a gas turbine engines for me to be unable to place them. The roaring stopped after what felt like only a few seconds. I imagine there was no need to
test for much longer than this to prove the Rockets viability. I thought no more of it, but it had obviously made a strong enough impression on me to
remember the events. It was not until many years later that I found out about the High Down rocket testing. (NOTE: I have amended this section a little, after all, this is a 40 year old memory!. Further more, as the needles were enveloped in steam, then the test had to have taken place on a day when the wind was blowing from the East. As this is fairly unusual it should be easy to identify which test this was, if we knew the weather data at time of test. However this must have been either R2 or more likely R3)
Of the five Black Arrow launch vehicles 3 were designated for systems testing and 2 for satellite launching. All the launched rockets were tested at High Down before
being shipped to Woomera.
The first test (R0) at Woomera was a failure, with a rocket direction control failing. The rocket had to be destroyed by remote
control.
The second test (R1) was successful but was not intended to reach orbit, being purely a systems test.
The third launch (R2) was intended to reach orbit but due to
a fuel leak in the second stage it fell back to earth.
The final launch (R3) successfully placed a satellite ( called Prospero ) into orbit. However the project had already been cancelled. The final launch only took place
because the Black Arrow team were already on their way to Woomera when the cancellation was announced. Evidently nobody told the team "officially" the programme had been cancelled.
The successful launch caused considerable political embarrasment but the cancellation remained.
The last launch vehicle (R4) was never launched and for many years formed a centre-piece in the Science Museum in London.
A Black Arrow launcher was diminuitive compared to most launchers of its day. Along with its novel and revolutionary fuel, its size makes it
stand out against most other launch vehicles.
A Black Arrow Launcher in Woomera Rocket park Australia.
I imagine this is a mock up as the last one (R4) is/was held by the Science Museum in London Image courtesy Wikipedia.org.
The Black Arrow project was massively underfunded and yet, for the money, achieved staggeringly successful results. It was, after the last launch, a proven
and cost effective satellite launching vehicle.
Black Arrow inevitably is, and was, compared to its contemporary massive American Saturn V rocket which was used for landing men on the moon.
The comparison invariably makes Black Arrow look puny and insignificant. But really, this comparison is bogus. It is like comparing a massive ocean liner to a racing yacht.
They may both be at the top of their game and yet almost any comparison of performance will favour the ocean liner. Black Arrow was designed to launch small satellites into low earth orbit.
Saturn V was used to land men on the moon. The Americans designed and still utilise a range of launch vehicles. The vehicle selection depends on the payload and mission.
At the time the direct American competitor to Black Arrow was a small satellite launcher called Scout. If my memory serves me correctly the first seven attempted launches of Scout ended in
failure. But the Americans had the strength of their convictions and Scout went on to be a great success. Unfortunately the fate of Black Arrow
was decided by people who may well have had a double first in Classics from Oxford, but technically could barely wire a three pin plug. Their erroneous view of an inability
for Black Arrow to compete was almost certainly clouded by a perception that it was Black Arrow versus Saturn V rather than Black Arrow versus Scout. The people making the
decisions lacked the technical and marketing skills to appreciate what they had. That, coupled with the fact that the country was virtually bankrupt sealed Black arrows fate.
Today Prospero still orbits the earth and passes over us twice a day. Her telemetry was turned off in 1996, although there have been rumours that you can still pick up
signals from her internal timing systems. Meanwhile the equivalent (though arguably less capable and more expensive) American Scout rocket went on to
launch more than 100 satellites and was only taken out of service in 1996. During most of its life, the Scout launcher had no competitors and effectively held a lucrative monopoly
for launching small satellites for the rest of the world (including British satellites)
There were two gantries at High Down in which the rockets was clamped before the test firing. The bases of these gantries
can be seen in the bottom half of this photo. They were relatively close to the cliff edge and the steam generated duing a test
spilled over the cliff edge and out to sea. The initial idea during the early days of the Black Knight program was that one gantry would be in-use
while the other was being prepared, but the lower than expected through-put of rockets never required this to take place.
A close in view of High Down and the test pads near the cliff
There was much bitterness and controversy regarding the cancellation. Even at the time, the cancellation appeared both foolish and short sighted.
Here are some of the rumours/comments/heresay that survive to this day
After being invited to visit the shoe-string Black Arrow development, one incredulous American rocket engineer, used to spending billions remarked that
"where we use dollars, you use ingenuity". (Quoted in a Daily Mirror article circa 1969-1970).
In the late sixties, as Black Arrow was coming to fuition and initial design work was starting on a larger system (Black Prince),
The US goverment offered to launch British satellites for free. After the cancellation of Black Arrow and Black Prince, the offer melted away.
Upon finding out that R3 had successfully launched the Prospero satellite, even though the project had already been cancelled, one unnamed
government minister was so enraged he stormed into his private secretarys office and and (in true political Prima-Donna style) demanded that everyone who
had worked on the project was sacked. However the launch achieved positive, though small scale coverage in the national press and "only" half of the Black Arrow team subsequently lost their
jobs, including most of those who worked at High Down.
The Black Arrow 1st stage was designed "under the covers" to act as as 2nd stage to a much larger launcher using Blue Steak as the first stage.
Blue Streak was a cancelled British ballisic missile. It was subsequently used as part of the unsuccessful European ELDO satellite launcher.
Although the Blue Streak first stage always worked, just about everything else on the ELDO launcher went wrong at some point.
The final bitter word on the demise of the British satellite launcher program was perhaps given by an anonymous engineer who gave the Prospero
satellite its final name. The satellite was actually going to have the Shakespearean name "Puck" (from a Mid Summer Nights Dream) but it was renamed
Prospero after the cancellation was made public. Prospero was a great and wise wizard in the Shakepearean play "The Tempest". Prospero laboured for many years
learning his mystical art. But at the end of the play he abandons his tools and so loses his powers.
And that is how it is today. High Down is a ghostly set of concrete pads and blast chutes. The buildings (except for the old Napoleonic fort) have
long gone. No clouds of steam have wafted their way toward Hengistbury Head for nigh on 40 years. Highdown rocket testing site along with the
skills developed there, lies rusting and forgotten
