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Brass Bell
Part of Dynasoar
American manned combat spacecraft. Study 1956. Hypersonic manned reconnaissance spaceplane project of the 1950's. Predecessor to Dynasoar.

Status: Study 1956.

WS-459L, Brass Bell, was the topic of a $746,000 contract awarded to Bell on 20 March 1956. This superseded earlier work on their Bomi concept. In November 1956 the Air Force asked NACA to review the Bell and Boeing work on hypersonic manned aircraft. By December 1956 Bell had had firmed up their design. A derivative of the Atlas ICBM would boost the basic manned glider to 5.4 km/sec at 50 km, allowing a glide range of 8800 km. Use of two such boosters in parallel as a first stage, with the basic booster as a second stage, would provide the glider with a maximum speed of 6.7 km/sec, and a range of 18,500 km, similar to that of the MX-2276 study of a year earlier. This concept was similar to that the company would submit for the Robo space bomber contract. Brass Bell work was rolled into the Dynasoar program in 1957. By that time total Brass Bell expenditures had reached $1.2 million.



Family: Combat spacecraft, US Rocketplanes. Country: USA. Agency: USAF.

1956 March 20 - .
1957 April 30 - .
1957 October 10 - .

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