V-4 was the first mostly-successful launch of the Aggregat 4 rocket, later known as (''V-2''). The launch occurred on the afternoon of 3 October 1942 and the rocket set a speed record of Mach 4, reached an apogee of , thereby becoming the first artificial object to reach both the

mesosphere The mesosphere (; ) is the third layer of the atmosphere, directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere, temperature decreases as altitude increases. This characteristic is used to define limits: it be ...

and the

thermosphere The thermosphere is the layer in the Earth's atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Within this layer of the atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation causes photoionization/photodissociation of molecules, creating ions; the ...

, surpassing the apogee of set by the Paris gun in 1918. At the time, the V-4 launch was considered the first time a man-made object reached outer space (, "Birthday of spaceflight"). That evening,

Walter Dornberger Major-General Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger (6 September 1895 – 26 June 1980) was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World War I and World War II. He was a leader of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket programme and other projects a ...

declared in a speech at Peenemunde, In 1960, the World Air Sports Federation (FAI) defined a boundary for space at (approximately the highest possible altitude where an aircraft can fly at less than orbital velocity in order not to stall), while the United States'

Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

consider the space boundary, the lower

mesopause The mesopause is the point of minimum temperature at the boundary between the mesosphere and the thermosphere atmospheric regions. Due to the lack of solar heating and very strong radiative cooling from carbon dioxide, the mesosphere is the c ...

. The V-4 launch satisfied the present-day American definition, while it did not cross the FAI's 100 km line. The 100 km boundary was established much later however, and the V-4 trajectory did reach the Kármán altitude range (c. ), of which the 100-kilometer boundary is simply a round-number approximation.

References

{{Space exploration lists and timelines 1942 in Germany V-weapons Wernher von Braun Space programme of Germany Short-range ballistic missiles 1940s in spaceflight

See also

References