Aerobee 150A, top, in assembly area. At left below, Aerobee 350 launched on its first full flight test, 18 June 1965. At right below, Astrobee 1500 erected for its first flight test, 21 October 1964.

Development of the Aerobee liquid-propellant sounding rocket was begun in 1946 by the Aerojet Engineering Corporation (later Aerojet-General Corporation) under contract to the U.S. Navy. The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins University was assigned technical direction of the project. James A. Van Allen, then Director of the project at APL, proposed the name "Aerobee." He took the "Aero" from Aerojet Engineering and the "bee" from Bumblebee, the name of the overall project to develop naval rockets1 that APL was monitoring for the Navy. The 18-kilonewton-thrust, two-stage Aerobee was designed to carry a 68-kilogram payload to a 130-kilometer altitude.