Cinetheodolite

Inside the astrodome at White Sands Missile Range is a Contraves Electro Optical Tracking System, Model F, which replaced the Askania Tracking System used on the range from the late 1950s until 29 January 1973, when the Contraves system became operational in both mobile and fixed configurations. This cinetheodolite stood at one of the range's many optical instrumentation sites, at Southwest 50, and recorded data during performance testing of missiles, aircraft, and other experimental weapon systems. A cinetheodolite combined a camera and a surveyor's theodolite on a tracking mechanism to follow a missile through its trajectory and observe its in-flight behavior by determining an object's position versus time and recording on film the azimuth and elevation angles from the station to the tracked object. It required two operators, one for azimuth tracking and one for elevation tracking. The cinetheodolite here supported tests of Redstone, Talos, Lance, Pershing, Nike Hercules, Sprint, Zeus, Hawk, Athena, and Patriot missiles. These fixed cinetheodolites were retired in 1992 to make way for the new Kineto Tracking Mount System. In engineering terms, a cinetheodolite is a surveying theodolite in which 35-millimeter motion picture cameras with lenses of 60- to 240-inch, or 1.5- to 6.1-meter, focal length are substituted for the surveyor's eye and telescope for precise time-correlated observation of distant airplanes, missiles, and artificial satellites.

White Sands, New Mexico · United States