Black Knight

Black Knight was a British research ballistic missile, originally developed to test and verify the design of a re-entry vehicle for the Blue Streak missile, and it was the United Kingdom's first indigenous expendable launch project. Design work began in 1955 at the Royal Aircraft Establishment together with Saunders-Roe, which was the principal manufacturer at its facility on the Isle of Wight. The vehicle was 35 feet long, 3 feet in diameter and weighed 12,800 pounds fully fuelled, and it was powered by the Gamma rocket engine, which burned high-test peroxide with kerosene, a fuel mixture Saunders-Roe already knew from its SR.53 rocket-propelled interceptor. A total of 25 were constructed, and 22 were fired between 1958 and 1965, almost all from Woomera in Australia, starting on 7 September 1958, with no major failures. Studies of larger versions were dropped in favour of the Black Arrow satellite launcher.