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Saturn 5 is the tallest heaviest and most powerful rocket but what are the biggest sounding rockets by height, mass and power?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounding_rocket

Joe Jobs
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    This is a great question! There may be sources that are helpful to formulating answers on the following page; Why a Terrier Malemute? – uhoh Aug 06 '20 at 22:46
  • Do ICBMs count as sounding rockets? – Anton Hengst Aug 07 '20 at 00:10
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    Of all the biggest-sounding rockets, I propose that the Saturn V sounded like it was the biggest of them all :-) – uhoh Aug 08 '20 at 13:52
  • @AntonHengst - ICBM are not for scientific experiments. And they never reach space so the answer is no – Joe Jobs Aug 08 '20 at 15:53
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    Ares 1-X? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I-X – Organic Marble Aug 08 '20 at 16:23
  • You mean suborbital rockets? I think the Mercury-Redstone perhaps, or the Big Joe or, as Organic Marble says, the Ares I. – Giovanni Aug 08 '20 at 16:43
  • Those are not sounding rockets. Those were made specifically as first step in developing orbital rockets based on them and not used after that for other scientific experiments. But it is interesting to know about biggest suborbital rockets though – Joe Jobs Aug 08 '20 at 18:05
  • If you don't believe ICBMs reach space, you're sorely, sorely mistaken. And "instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight" describes nearly every suborbital test flight. – Anton Hengst Aug 08 '20 at 18:41
  • Dang sorry I mean not reaching orbit – Joe Jobs Aug 08 '20 at 18:43
  • Well Wikipedia doesnt name Ares or Big Joe sounding rockets, and most likely noone in the news nor in the scientific community. For some certain distinctions. I will use the same distinctions. – Joe Jobs Aug 08 '20 at 20:36
  • @Joe Jobs - there is a lot of spread in ICBMs and similar vehicles that carried science payloads while being primary a vehicle test - Project highwater could be argued as a 'sounding rocket' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Highwater but is not what you want. Does 'was/is in series production to carry science payloads' work to tighten up what you are after, allows you to rule out mercury-Redstone and ICBM/Launch vehicle tests but allows such vehicles if repurposed later. – GremlinWranger Aug 09 '20 at 02:27

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Depending how you define sounding rocket the title of heaviest/largest probably belongs to a V2 derivative such as those flown during the Bumper program with masses around the 12-13 tonnes though finding actual launch mass of the various combinations is challenging.

After that you get into various ICBM and launch vehicle tests in the 15-30 tonne range that flew sounding rocket profiles and in many cases carried science payloads but were flown more for testing the vehicle rather than the payload. These include Mercury Redstone and the British Black Arrow/Black Knight programs.

Finally there are things like Ares I and Project High water in the 100s of tonnes class but generally flying somewhat normal launch trajectories that just happen to be sub orbital because there is no second stage and only flown once.

The main reason for this somewhat odd '1940s being the biggest' is cost. It does not actually take that much of a rocket to fly a single 10-20kg instrument above the Karman line (even in 1960), per the table in the question. If you do actually want to fly a 100-1000kg payload the cost of building it probably means you want more than a couple of minutes in space, and building one and flying it as a satellite makes more sense than building a dozen for short one way flights.

Larger rockets also become entangled in ITAR where unguided & lower payload models can be more widely sold.

So there is little commercial incentive to design, build and sell a 10-20 tonne rocket to fly sounding profiles with 1-2 tonne payloads so none have made it to market in volume to be used for sounding rocket programs.

The answer to this question may change if the 20 tonne New Shepard starts flying science payloads on a commercial basis.

GremlinWranger
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