Shroud for the Surveyor Spacecraft in the Space Power Chambers

Researchers prepare a Centaur-Surveyor nose cone shroud for a separation test in the Space Power Chambers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center. Lewis was in the midst of an extensive effort to prepare the Centaur second-stage rocket for its missions to send the Surveyor spacecraft to the moon as a precursor to the Apollo missions. The nose fairing provided an aerodynamic shield for the payload, guidance system, and electronics package as the rocket traveled through the Earth’s atmosphere. Upon entering space, the thruster near the tip of the fairing forced the two pieces away from the space vehicle. The June 30, 1964 launch of Atlas-Centaur-3 was successful. Within a month of the launch, a Centaur shroud was obtained and installed in the Space Power Chambers. The facility was the only space tank in the country large enough to accommodate the hardware. The two halves of the fiberglass fairing were mounted vertically to a platform. Aluminum pads were set up on either side to catch the shroud halves as they were jettisoned, and a myriad of high-speed cameras were installed to record the tests. The shroud was badly damaged during the first test. It was replaced, and the test equipment redesigned. Over the course of 11 runs during the summer of 1964, the redesigned bulkhead was retested and the new fairing was validated by the final jettison on November 24, 1964. Just over two weeks later, Atlas-Centaur-4 successfully launched a mock-up Surveyor spacecraft into orbit. It was the first Centaur mission to have an error-free shroud jettison.