Saphir VE231 (French, meaning sapphire) was a French sounding rocket. It was part of the "pierres précieuses" ("precious stones") family of launch vehicles. Saphir was used between 1965 and 1967 and had a payload capacity of . The rocket could reach a maximum altitude of and produced thrust of at launch. Saphir had a launch mass of , a diameter of and a length of . Saphir was launched 15 times, from July 5, 1965, to January 27, 1967. The Diamant rocket, which carried the first French satellite, Asterix-1, into orbit, was developed from the Saphir with the addition of a third stage. After the successful launch of Diamant, Saphir rockets were used to test technologies for France's burgeoning intercontinental ballistic missile development—namely radio and inertial guidance, warhead separation, and ablative heat shielding of a re-entry vehicle. See also French space program Veronique (rocket) References Experimental rockets Sounding rockets of France Space launch vehicles of France