Atlas 4A Tumble & Explosion/7F staging June 1966 HACL Film 00164
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Film from the Atlas Centaur Heritage Film Collection which was donated to the San Diego Air and Space Museum by Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance. The Collection contains 3,000 reels of 16-millimeter film. From the archives of the San Diego Air and Space Museum http://www.sandiegoairandspace.org/research/ Please do not use for commercial purposes without permission.
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Cool! This is one of the few films of the Atlas unique "stage-and-a-half" separation. Unlike all other multi-stage rockets, only the two outer boost engines are discarded when staging, keeping the main fuel tanks and the center "sustainer" engine, which continues firing. Even today, this is the closest mankind has come to a "single-stage-to-orbit" system.
(Title is misleading. There is no explosion, just a lot of gasses released and exhaust deflected when the two booster engines disconnect, blocking the camera view for a while.)
4m 3sLenght
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