NK005 1/72 Blossom V-2

The Air Force began the Blossom Project as a means of recovering V-2 payloads by parachute. The Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory Field Station at White Sands Missile Range planned to conduct ten of these flights to test the methods of parachute recovery from the fringes of space, and to recover test animals safely. The first Blossom lifted off on February 20, 1947. At apogee it ejected its nose cone, which deployed an eight foot ribbon parachute. As payload descended to an altitude of 30 miles, it deployed a 14 foot parachute. After a 50 minute fall, the first Blossom came to rest, breaking the altitude record for a parachute drop. Then experimenters added a new, much larger payload capsule to the V-2. They also modified the V-2 airframe, creating a V-2 that was one diameter longer than the original missile. Monkey Albert II shared V-2 No. 47 with no less than a dozen instruments studying high-energy particles, X-rays, upper atmospheric weather, and air composition. This rocket liffted off on June 14, 1949. The payload separated from the rocket as planned, but again the parachute failed. The Blossom recovery system continued to fail. The repeated failures of the Blossom Project taught future experimenters how not to recover high altitude payloads.

The set is including Condor's 1/72 German Missile A4/V2 kit (No. 72001).