Boosted Arcas

Boosted Arcas is the designation of an American sounding rocket, in which an Arcas rocket^[1] was boosted using a first stage to improve the altitude and payload.

Boosted Arcas sounding rocket

Variants of the Boosted Arcas were Boosted Arcas, Sparrow Arcas, Sidewinder Arcas, and Boosted Arcas II.^[2]

• The Boosted Arcas consists of a first stage of an Atlantic Richfield booster^[3] using a 0.8-KS-2700 solid propellant engine.^[2]
• The Sparrow-Arcas^[2] (or "Sparrow-HV Arcas"^[1]) booster was based on the liquid-propellant AIM-7D Sparrow missile as a first stage.
• The Sidewinder-Arcas^[2] (or "Sidewinder-HV Arcas"^[1]) used the solid-propellant AIM-9B Sidewinder missile as a first-stage.
• The Boosted Arcas 2 used a MARC 42A1 booster.^[2][4]

The maximum altitude of the Boosted Arcas amounts to 50 km, the takeoff thrust 1.00 kN, the diameter 0.11 m and the length 3.40 m. The Boosted Arcas was launched 78 times between 1963 and 1972.