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USN 710339: First Picture from Navy Weather Surveillance Rocket Camera, December 1958.

USN 710339: First Picture from Navy Weather Surveillance Rocket Camera, December 1958. Tests of a new U.S. Navy Rocket Camera Unit designed specifically to photograph high-altitude ocean cloud formations associated with hurricane and weather frontal systems are being conducted by the Office of U.S. Naval Research. The rocket-camera unit will be utilized where there are no permanent weather stations. These are the first pictures which have been obtained from Project Hugo (High Unusual Geophysical Operations) rocket which soared to an altitude of 86.25 miles during the first test flight on December 5, 1958. In this picture, a composite of five photographs, a frontal cloud formation is shown over the Atlantic Ocean starting about 200 miles off shore and stretching nearly 700 miles further seaward. This mosaic strip covers approximately 1000 miles in further inward ranging approximately from the southern tip of Maine to mid-Florida. The film was successfully recovered at sea from the nose cone of the Nike-Cajun Rocket by USS Leary (DD 879). The rocket was fired from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency’s pilotless aircraft and research station at Wallows Island, Virginia. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
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Caption: USN 710339: First Picture from Navy Weather Surveillance Rocket Camera, December 1958. Tests of a new U.S. Navy Rocket Camera Unit designed specifically to photograph high-altitude ocean cloud formations associated with hurricane and weather frontal systems are being conducted by the Office of U.S. Naval Research. The rocket-camera unit will be utilized where there are no permanent weather stations. These are the first pictures which have been obtained from Project Hugo (High Unusual Geophysical Operations) rocket which soared to an altitude of 86.25 miles during the first test flight on December 5, 1958. In this picture, a composite of five photographs, a frontal cloud formation is shown over the Atlantic Ocean starting about 200 miles off shore and stretching nearly 700 miles further seaward. This mosaic strip covers approximately 1000 miles in further inward ranging approximately from the southern tip of Maine to mid-Florida. The film was successfully recovered at sea from the nose cone of the Nike-Cajun Rocket by USS Leary (DD 879). The rocket was fired from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency’s pilotless aircraft and research station at Wallows Island, Virginia. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
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Topic
  • Space Exploration
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  • Photograph
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Navy Communities
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  • National Museum of the U.S. Navy
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