This replica represents an unmanned SV-5D lifting body, the first vehicle to maneuver on reentry from space. It was developed for Project PRIME (Precision Recovery Including Maneuvering Reentry).

Lifting bodies are wingless craft which derive aerodynamic lift from their body shape alone. They showed great promise as space vehicles capable of hypersonic reentry into the earth's atmosphere while possessing the ability to maneuver like aircraft. Manufactured by Martin Marietta Corporation, these vehicles were also designed to test new ablative heat shield material and to provide aerodynamic data on vehicle stability.

Three successful launches of actual SV-5D lifting bodies using Atlas boosters were conducted from Vandenberg Air Force Base down the Western Test Range during 1966-1967. Recovery of one of the vehicles near Kwajalein provided actual reentry heating, aerodynamic and cross-range maneuvering data which vitally aided later Air Force and NASA manned lifting body programs, including the Space Shuttle.

Project PRIME was managed by SMC's organizational ancestor, the Space Systems Division at Air Force Systems Command.

Presented to the Space and Missile Systems Organization by the SAMSO Junior Officers' Council in recognition of the organization's twenty years of accomplishments



in ballistic missile and space programs, November 1974.

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Capt. Lou Lenart, USMC (Ret.)
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