Vought XRM-91 competition

hesham

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Hi,

the Chance Vought XRM-91 was won over 12 companies,and Vought
got the major contact for the NASA/Department Defense Scout four-
stage solid-propellant space research vehicle of 1959.
Who know the other tenders ?.
 
Could you please provide the source of your information and, in particular whether it refers mto the Vought Scout in general or the XRM-91A only.

Here is what I have on the XRM-91A:
The designation XRM-91A referred to a Ford managed development of the Vought Blue Scout Junior sounding rocket. The first flight was on 21 September 1960 (as Nudets-1), followed by flights on 8 November 1960 (as Nudets-3), 17 August 1961 (as Nudets-8) and 4 December 1961 (as Nudets-9).
There were further Blue Scout flights until 24 November 1970, but these are not considered XRM-91 flights. The sounding rockets had serials in the range 60-6082/6093 which also included the XRM-89, XRM-90 and XRM-92.

Just to complete the picture, here is what I have for the others:

The designation XRM 89A referred to a Ford managed development of the Vought Blue Scout I sounding rocket. The first flight was on 7 January 1961 (known as Nudets-4), followed by a flight on 9 May 1961 (as Nudets-7). There was a further flight on 12 April 1962 which carried a re-entry vehicle.

The designation XRM 90A referred to a Ford managed development of the Vought Blue Scout 2 sounding rocket. The first flight was on 3 March 1961 (as Nudets-5) followed by another two launches on 12 April 1961 (as Nudets-6) and 1 November 1961. The latter flight was also known as Mercury-Scout (MS)-1 and it failed after 30 seconds.

The designation XRM 92A referred to a Ford managed development of the Vought Scout X-1 sounding rocket. The sounding rockets were in the serial in the range 60 6082/6093.
Seven flights of the Scout X-1 were undertaken between 1 July 1960 and 19 October 1961 of which one flight, 4 October 1960, carried a USAF Nudets experiment. Probably that flight might have been the XRM-92A flight.
 
My dear Jos,

the source is the book Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1974-1975,
unfortunately there is no info about the other contenders.
 
Don't always believe what you read in Jane's. ;)
The Nudets program was to test nuclear detection (Nudets) techniques and equipment. Because of its nature it seems unlikely to me that there was an open competion or that there were even twelve appropriate contenders. May be the competition was for the equipment. But then I might be wrong....
 
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