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Black Prince - A Plan Drawing by: C.N.Hill
© British Rockets & Satellite Launchers

The Black Prince project originated in 1959, when Dr Geoffrey Pardoe and the Blue Streak missile team at Farnborough were given permission by the British government to give a lecture on a possible Blue Streak-based launcher. The design, which had been considered by Blue Streak researchers for several years, consisted of a Blue Streak first stage, a Black Knight second stage, and a military solid rocket as a third stage. This launcher, it was calculated, could put one ton of payload into Low Earth Orbit. Despite this, the British government, refused to give permission for any work to be done on space launchers, even when Sir Edward Playfair wrote to the Minister of Aviation asking about the potential of a Blue Streak/Black Arrow launcher.

All this changed, though, on the 13 April 1960, when Blue Streak was cancelled as a weapon. In order to reduce the political fallout from the cancellation, Defence Minister Harold Watkinson announced that the project would be continued as a satellite launcher. Changes had to be made to the original design, though. Black Knight was only three feet in diameter, a fact which would cause problems with larger satellites. New second and third stages would be developed from the highly successful Black Knight test rocket, with a maximum diameter of four feet six inches (The size of the Static Test Beds at High Down).

This version of Black Prince was costed at £35 million in May 1960, a price at which Minister of Science Lord Hailsham did not think the expenditure was justifiable. The expense rose again, as by September 1960, the project was costed at £52 million for Black Prince, with another £12 million going on satellite development. These figures were too much for Britain to pay on its own, so foreign partners were sought. In September and October 1960, Aviation Minister Peter Thorneycroft toured Australia and Canada promoting Black Prince as a "Commonwealth Launcher". There was, however, little interest, despite the possibility of launching communications satellites to link the Commonwealth.

This lack of interest from the Commonwealth meant that in October 1960, in Paris, Thorneycroft offered Black Prince to France as an element of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) rocket. This would mean, however, that the ELDO rocket, though in effect just a redesigned Black Prince, would use a French second stage rather than one developed from the already-proven Black Knight. The Anglo-French launcher was to develop into the Europa I and Europa II projects.

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