The Redstone family of rockets consisted of a number of American

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...

s, sounding rockets and expendable launch vehicles operational during the 1950s and 1960s. The first member of the Redstone family was the

PGM-11 Redstone The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), it was in active service with the United States Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO's Cold War defense of W ...

missile, from which all subsequent variations of the Redstone were derived. The

Juno 1 The Juno I was a four-stage American space launch vehicle, used to launch lightweight payloads into low Earth orbit. The launch vehicle was used between January 1958 to December 1959. The launch vehicle was a member of the Redstone launch veh ...

version of the Redstone launched Explorer 1, the first U.S. orbital satellite in 1958 and the Mercury-Redstone variation carried the first two U.S. astronauts into space in 1961. The rocket was named for the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama where it was developed.

PGM-11 Redstone

First launched in 1953, the

was a short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile in active service with the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

from June 1958 to June 1964; and was used for the first U.S. live nuclear missile tests. It was built by Chrysler for the United States

Army Ballistic Missile Agency The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) was formed to develop the U.S. Army's first large ballistic missile. The agency was established at Redstone Arsenal on 1 February 1956, and commanded by Major General John B. Medaris with Wernher von ...

(ABMA) and was deployed in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. George Huebner was the executive engineer in charge of Chrysler's Missile Branch.

Jupiter-A

Jupiter-A was the first variant of Redstone, used to test components later used in the

PGM-19 Jupiter The PGM-19 Jupiter was the first nuclear armed, medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). It was a liquid-propellant rocket using RP-1 fuel and LOX oxidizer, with a single Rocketdyne LR79-NA (model S-3D) r ...

medium-range ballistic missile.

Jupiter-C

Jupiter-C was a sounding rocket used for three

sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

s in 1956 and 1957. It was used as a testbed for

re-entry vehicle Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

s later deployed on the PGM-19 Jupiter.

Juno I

Juno I The Juno I was a four-stage American space launch vehicle, used to launch lightweight payloads into low Earth orbit. The launch vehicle was used between January 1958 to December 1959. The launch vehicle was a member of the Redstone launch ve ...

was a derivative of the Jupiter-C, used to launch the first American satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958. Although the U.S. possibly could have put a satellite into orbit before the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

had the ABMA been allowed to attempt a satellite launch in August 1956, the Eisenhower administration wanted the first U.S. satellite to be launched by a civilian rocket developed by American engineers instead of a rocket derived from a military missile program and developed by the German engineers of

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...

. Additionally, the administration saw value in the USSR taking the first move to reach orbit because they would set the precedent that territorial overflight in space was fair game, necessary for the United States' space-based photoreconaissance ambitions in the wake of diplomatic protests against U-2 incursions of Soviet airspace. The Vanguard launch vehicle was the civilian rocket program in development for this purpose, so the administration ordered ABMA's research director,

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

, not to attempt any satellite launches. The Vanguard rocket failed on its first attempt to launch the Vanguard satellite in December 1957, crashing back to the pad and exploding. Following this setback and in the wake of the Sputnik crisis, the administration changed course and turned to the Army, asking ABMA and von Braun to launch the JPL-built satellite as soon as possible.

Mercury-Redstone

The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle (MRLV), also known as Mercury-Redstone, used the stretched Redstone configuration from the Jupiter-C for six suborbital launches for

Project Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...

in 1960 and 1961, including United States' first two human spaceflights: * Mercury-Redstone 1, abort, traveled *

Mercury-Redstone 1A Mercury- Redstone 1A (MR-1A) was launched on December 19, 1960 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission objectives of this uncrewed suborbital flight were to qualify the spacecraft for space flight and qualify the system for an upcoming ...

, successful unmanned flight * Mercury-Redstone 2, carried

Ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term "ham ...

, a chimpanzee *

Mercury-Redstone BD Mercury-Redstone BD was an uncrewed booster development flight in the U.S. Mercury program. It was launched on March 24, 1961 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 5, Launch Complex 5 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Cape Canaver ...

, booster development – final test before manned flight *

Mercury-Redstone 3 Mercury-Redstone 3, or ''Freedom 7'', was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first crewed flight of Project Mercury. The project had the ultimate objective of putting an as ...

(''Freedom 7''), first American in space,

Alan Shepard Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...

Mercury-Redstone 4 Mercury-Redstone 4 was the second United States human spaceflight, on July 21, 1961. The suborbital Project Mercury flight was launched with a Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, MRLV-8. The spacecraft, Mercury capsule #11, was nicknamed the ''Lib ...

(''Liberty Bell 7''), second American in space,

Gus Grissom Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer, pilot in the United States Air Force, and member of the Mercury Seven selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) as Project Mercur ...

Saturn

Two members of the Saturn family of rockets, the

Saturn I The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to low Earth orbit payloads.Terminology has changed since the 1960s; back then, 20,000 pounds was considered "heavy lift". The rocket's first sta ...

and IB, were derived from the Redstone. They used eight tanks built on Redstone tooling clustered around one propellant tank built on Jupiter missile tooling, and utilized eight Rocketdyne H-1 (Jupiter) engines to form the first stage of the rockets. First developed by the ABMA, the Saturn rocket was adopted by NASA for its Apollo program. America's first heavy-lift launch vehicles, the first of these was launched in 1961.

Sparta

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...

was the name given to a series of surplus Redstone missiles with two solid-fuel upper stages launched as part of a joint US-UK research project with Australia from 1966 to 1967. Sparta launched Australia's first Earth satellite,

WRESAT WRESAT or Weapons Research Establishment Satellite was the first Australian satellite, named after its designer. WRESAT was launched on 29 November 1967 using a modified American Redstone rocket with two upper stages known as a Sparta from th ...

References

Notes Bibliography * {{Rocket families Medium-range ballistic missiles Space launch vehicles of the United States Sounding rockets of the United States Expendable space launch systems bg:Редстоун (ракета) ca:Redstone (coet) cs:Redstone da:Redstone de:Redstone (Rakete) es:Redstone fr:PGM-11 Redstone it:PGM-11 Redstone he:רדסטון (טיל) no:Redstone (rakett) pl:SSM-A-14 Redstone pt:Redstone sk:Redstone (balistická raketa) fi:Redstone (raketti) zh:紅石飛彈