Orión was the designation of a sounding rocket family of Argentina, which was launched between 1965 and 1971 at CELPA (El Chamical), CELPA (Mar Chiquita), Tartagal and Wallops Island.
Developed by the Instituto de Investigaciones Aeronauticas y Espaciales (IIAE), An Orión flight on August 13, 1966 that reached an apogee of 114 km, surpassing the Kármán line, made Argentina the first South American nation to launch a rocket into space.
The first version Orión-1 was flown twice in 1965 and 1966 from CELPA (El Chamical), in order to test the engines and technologies.
It had a length of , a diameter of and a weight of . Apogee was for a payload. Solid fuel mass was with a burn time of 12 seconds.
Table of Orión-1 launches:
In November 1966, three tests of the updated Orión-2 took place from Wallops Island.
This version had a gross takeoff mass of and could carry a payload to an apogee of . Its dimensions were in length and in diameter.
Orión-2 was launched 22 times from 1966 to 1971. Besides Wallops, launch sites included CELPA (El Chamical), CELPA (Mar Chiquita) and Tartagal.
Table of Orión-2 launches: