Skylark: Britain’s Pioneering Space Rocket


Interesting temporary display at the Science Museum looking at Britain’s unmanned rocket, Skylark.

I hadn’t know anything about this and was fascinated by this display. The rocket was designed for scientific experiments and began flying in 1957. It operated out of the Millard Space Science Laboratory and its work included taking ultraviolet images of the cosmos.

I was surprised at how small it was and that each one only flew for 10 minutes and yet there were nearly 450 flights in all.

I loved a video of people who worked on the project sharing their memories of it. My father worked at a scientific establishment in the 1950s and they reminded me of him and his friends and the stories they told. It also pointed out that, as it only stopped flying in 2005, many of the current astro-scientists started their careers using it as part of their phds.

Closing date unknown. 

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