Rocket Designation Numbers ??

[k5knt]

While browsing the web looking at various real life rockets, I've come across some sort of number designation.

For example, 36.181 US. The numbers always seem to be in a xx.xxx format with a two letter suffix. I have also seen the number preceded by the word "NASA".

Take a look here for some other examples, scroll down to around February 1990: https://www.astronautix.com/lvs/blabrant.htm

Does anyone here know what these are and how to decipher them? Is there a listing on the web somewhere? I've tried looking, but since I really don't know what they are it's hard to do a proper search for them.

Thanks.

 

[Stymye]

https://www.designation-systems.net/

 

[k5knt]

Originally posted by stymye
https://www.designation-systems.net/

Thanks, that is a great resource. It appears to only cover military rockets, etc. I believe that the numbers I'm asking about are non-military. For example, I searched the site for "Black Brant" and "36.181US" and did not get any matches to either.

 

[Silverleaf]

What your referring to is the NASA flight ID, which partly can be explained on this page:

https://www.univ-perp.fr/fuseurop/a/nasa.htm

So using your specific number 36.181 it references:

36 - Black Brant IX

with a coded 181 for specific flight type.

If you look on this page:

https://planet4589.org/space/lvdb/launch/Terrier

and do a CTRL-F search and type in 36.181, you'll see the listing for your flight.

then further to the right on the page with your Black brant listed, you'll see the words SS Solar EUV, which mean a test for Solar purposes.

Personally, I like the Flight Tag that this Gent uses in the case of this particular flight its :

1999-R3105-007

Another page with the Black Brant history is:

https://www.astronautix.com/lvs/blabrant.htm