Dan Dare Would Be Proud.

The Black Knight was the United Kingdom's first indigenous rocket project; between 1958 and 1965, 22 rockets of this type were fired from the firing range at Woomera, Australia - the greatest height attained was 499 miles.

The design of the rocket was contracted to Saunders-Roe in mid-1955, with the rocket engines designed by Armstrong-Siddeley near Coventry and tested at the High Down Static Test Site on the Isle of Wight. The rocket itself was designed as a launch vehicle, initially to test re-entry vehicles for the Blue Streak Medium Range Ballistic Missile - then being mooted as a replacement for the Royal Air Force's V-Bomber deterrent.

Despite the Royal Aircraft Establishment conducted studies into the feasibility of using a two-stage variant of Black Knight as a satellite launcher, the project was cancelled in favour of the three-stage Black Arrow rocket, which placed the first British satellite, Prospero, into low-Earth orbit in 1971.

Only two examples of the type remain; this is BK-02, which can be found in the National Museum of Scotland - a poignant reminder of a future that never came to pass, despite the best efforts of Arthur C.Clarke and Frank Hampson.