The biggest U.S.-built rocket being flown today, the 7½-ton Viking Nine, was fired last week at White Sands Proving Ground. Climbing 135 miles above the earth, it did not establish a new altitude record; the Viking Seven, fired in August 1951, went just as high. But the latest Viking carried the heaviest payload: 750 Ibs. of instruments, a big improvement on the 450 Ibs. carried by the Viking Seven. According to Dr. Milton Rosen, head of the Navy's Viking project, the rocket performed beautifully, going just where it was expected to go.
Among the instruments it carried to study the threshold of...
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