Contour's STAR 30BP Kick Rocket
The three illustrations on this page, and the photo at right, were adapted by A/CC from the Contour mission site's Image Gallery and news materials. All the photos came from the Image Gallery and are credited to NASA.
The apparent failure of the Contour mission, which may or may not involve its rocket engine, might prompt you to want to know more about what's "under the hood" of a relatively low-budget spacecraft designed to visit minor objects. Since A/CC couldn't find a good reference to refer readers to about the STAR 30BP, we assembled this little montage.
At 503 kg. (1,109 lbs.), the ATK STAR 30BP solid-fuel "kick" motor comprised a bit more than half the total takeoff weight of the 970-kg. (2,138-lb.) Contour comet probe. Although this rocket was installed permanently into the craft, it had just one use: to perform a 50-second burn to take Contour out of Earth orbit seven weeks after launch.
SpaceDaily reports that the STAR 30BP has been used in 86 previous missions with only two failures, and that the STAR series of Thiokol (now ATK Tactical Systems Co.) rockets goes all the way back to the early U.S. lunar program.
The STAR 30BP is shown in the photo at top right on a stand just before it was installed into the middle of the vehicle. In the illustration at left, you can see how the rocket exhaust cone protrudes slightly from the bottom center of the Contour spacecraft.
Prior to igniting the STAR 30BP, Contour was spun at 60 revolutions per minute for stability during the burn, thus the radial blur shown in the artist's concept at right of the rocket firing.
