Downrange, or down range,1 is the horizontal distance traveled by a spacecraft, or the spacecraft's horizontal distance from the launch site. More often, it is used as an adverb or adjective specifying the direction of that travel being measured in a horizontal direction.
In military slang, downrange is a term for being deployed overseas, usually in a war zone. It is also the name of a comic strip published in the newspaper Stars and Stripes.2 It can also refer to the direction of fire: away from the source and in the direction of the target.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a down range tracking system existed at Gulkula, in the Northern Territory of Australia, to track rockets launched from the Woomera Test Range in South Australia.1
References
References
- Garrick, Matt (12 September 2020). "Northern Territory historical society saves satellite tracker from scrap heap after a 3,000km journey". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
- Seth Robson (8 November 2018). "Century-old Stars and Stripes cartoons serve as vivid reminder of WWI troops' struggles". Stars and Stripes. Retrieved 7 May 2023.