Kitty

American sounding rocket developed to measure winds aloft in support of nuclear tests.

A 1957 Stanford Research Institute study proposed a small single-stage sounding rocket to measure winds at 45 km (150,000 ft) to determine the spread of radioactive fallout. The Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Cambridge Research Center awarded Atlantic Research Corporation a contract to develop this sounding rocket in January 1958. ARC designed the Arcas rocket, the first of which was ready for flight tests in late 1958. By the end of 1960, more than 400 Arcas rockets had been launched.