1953 In Spaceflight
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The year 1953 saw the
rockoon A rockoon (from ''rocket'' and ''balloon'') is a sounding rocket that, rather than being lit immediately while still on the ground, is first carried into the upper atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon, then separated from the balloon and ignited. ...
join the stable of
sounding rockets A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital flight ...
capable of reaching beyond the boundary of space (as defined by the World Air Sports Federation). Employed by both the
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
and the
Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...
, 22 total were launched from the decks of the and the this year. All branches of the United States military continued their program of
Aerobee The Aerobee rocket was one of the United States' most produced and productive sounding rockets. Developed by the Aerojet Corporation, the Aerobee was designed to combine the altitude and launching capability of the V-2 with the cost effectiven ...
sounding rocket launches, a total of 23 were launched throughout 1953. The Soviet Union launched no sounding rockets in 1953; however, the Soviet Union did conduct several series of missile test launches. Both the United States and the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by are ...
continued their development of ballistic missiles: the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
with its
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...
ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
, the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
with its Redstone SRBM, the Soviet
OKB-1 S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation "Energia" () is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components. Its name is derived from the Russian word for energy and is also named for Sergei Korolev, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, th ...
with its R-5 IRBM, and Soviet Factory 586 with its R-12 IRBM. None entered active service during 1953. The first meeting of the Comité Speciale de l'Année Géophysique Internationale (CSAGI), a special committee of the
International Council of Scientific Unions The International Council for Science (ICSU, after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the advancement of science. Its members ...
(ICSU), began preliminary coordination of the
International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...
(IGY), scheduled for 1957–58.


Space exploration highlights


US Navy

On 25 May 1953, Viking 10, originally planned to be the last of the
Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...
-built
Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9â ...
rockets, arrived at
White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, where the Trinity t ...
in
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
. A successful static firing on 18 June cleared the way for a 30 June launch date, a schedule that had been made months prior, before the rocket had even left the
Glenn L. Martin Company The Glenn L. Martin Company, also known as The Martin Company from 1917 to 1961, was an American aircraft and aerospace industry, aerospace manufacturing company founded by aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin. The Martin Company produced many impo ...
plant where it had been built. At the moment of liftoff, the tail of Viking 10 exploded, setting the rocket afire. Water was immediately flooded into the rocket's base in an attempt to extinguish the fire, but flames continued to burn in the East Quadrant of the firing platform. Half an hour after launch, two of the launch team under manager Milton Rosen were dispatched to put out the fire to salvage what remained of the rocket. Though successful, these efforts were then threatened by a slow leak in the propellant tank. The vacuum created by the departing fuel was causing the tank to dimple with the danger of implosion that would cause the rocket to collapse. Lieutenant Joseph Pitts, a member of the launch team, shot a rifle round into the tank, equalizing the pressure and saving the rocket. Three hours after the attempted launch, the last of the alcohol propellant had been drained from Viking 10. The launch team was able to salvage the instrument package of cameras, including X-ray detectors, cosmic ray emulsions, and a radio-frequency mass-spectrometer, valued at tens of thousands of dollars, although there was concern that the rocket was irreparable. A thorough investigation of the explosion began in July, but a conclusive cause could not be determined. In a reported presented in September, Milton Rosen noted that a similar occurrence had not happened in more than 100 prior tests of the Viking motor. It was decided to rebuild Viking 10, and a program for closer monitoring of potential fail points was implemented for the next launch, scheduled for 1954.


American civilian efforts

After the successful field tests of balloon-launched rockets (
rockoon A rockoon (from ''rocket'' and ''balloon'') is a sounding rocket that, rather than being lit immediately while still on the ground, is first carried into the upper atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon, then separated from the balloon and ignited. ...
s) the previous year, a
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
physics team embarked on a second rockoon expedition aboard the in summer 1953 with improved equipment. The new Skyhook balloons increased the rocket firing altitude from to affording a peak rocket altitude of . The total payload weights were increased by to . Between 18 July and 4 September, the Iowa team launched 16 rockoons from a variety of latitudes, 7 of which reached useful altitudes and returned usable data. An
NRL The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...
team aboard the same vessel launched six rockoons, of which half were complete successes. Data from these launches provided the first evidence of radiation associated with
aurora borealis An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...
.


Spacecraft development


US Air Force

Development of the
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...
, the nation's first
ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
proceeded slowly throughout 1953. Without firm figures as to the weight and dimension of a thermonuclear device (the US tested its first H-bomb in November 1952, the USSR announced their first successful test in August 1953), it was not known if the Atlas could deliver an atomic bomb payload. In spring 1953, Colonel Bernard Schriever, an assistant in development planning at
The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...
and a proponent of long-ranged ballistic missiles, pushed to obtain accurate characteristics of a nuclear payload. Trevor Gardner, special assistant for research and development to the new
Secretary of the Air Force The secretary of the Air Force, sometimes referred to as the secretary of the Department of the Air Force, (SecAF, or SAF/OS) is the head of the Department of the Air Force and the service secretary for the United States Air Force and United Sta ...
, Harold Talbott, responded by organizing the Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee or " Teapot Committee" comprising eleven of the top scientists and engineers in the country. Their goal would be to determine if a nuclear payload could be made small enough to fit on the Atlas rocket. If so, the importance of the committee's members would allow such findings to accelerate Atlas development. By October, committee member
John von Neumann John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 â€“ February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...
had completed his report on weights and figures indicating that smaller, more powerful warheads within Atlas' launch capability would soon be available. Pending test verification of von Neumann's theoretical results, the Air Force began revising the Atlas design for the projected nuclear payload.


US Army

The first production Redstone, a surface-to-surface missile capable of delivering nuclear or conventional warheads to a range of , was delivered on 27 July 1953. A Redstone R&D missile was flight tested on 20 August 1953.


Soviet Union

The R-5 missile, able to carry the same payload as the R-1 and R-2 but over a distance of underwent its first series of eight test launches from 15 March to 23 May 1953. After two failures, the third rocket, launched 2 April, marked the beginning of streak of success. Seven more missiles were launched between 30 October and December, all of which reached their targets. A final series of launches, designed to test modifications made in response to issues with the first series, was scheduled for mid-1954. In his brief tenure as Director of
NII-88 TsNIIMash () is a Russian rocket and spacecraft scientific center, dealing with all phases of development from conceptual design to flight test. The Institute is the main analytical center of Roskosmos in the field of system-wide studies of the ...
, responsible for the production of all Soviet ballistic missiles, engineer
Mikhail Yangel Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel (; 7 November 1911 – 25 October 1971), was a Soviet people, Soviet engineer born in Irkutsk who was the leading designer in the missile program of the former Soviet Union. Biography Yangel was the grandson of a Russ ...
chafed professionally with
OKB-1 S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation "Energia" () is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components. Its name is derived from the Russian word for energy and is also named for Sergei Korolev, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, th ...
(formerly NII-88 Section 3) Chief Designer,
Sergei Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet Aerospace engineering, rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He invented the R-7 Sem ...
, whom he had previously reported to as Deputy Chief Designer of the bureau. To relieve this tension, on 4 October 1953, Yangel was demoted to NII-88 Chief Engineer and assigned responsibility for production of missiles at State Union Plant No. 586 in
Dnepropetrovsk Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...
. This plant under, Vasiliy Budnik, had been tasked on 13 February 1953 with developing the R-12 missile, possessing a performance similar to that of the R-5 (range of vs. ) but using storable propellants so that it could be stored at firing readiness for extended periods of time. At the end of 1953, at a meeting of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet () was the standing body of the highest organ of state power, highest body of state authority in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).The Presidium of the Soviet Union is, in short, the legislativ ...
, it was determined that a transportable thermonuclear device be developed (as opposed to the one detonated in August, which was stationary). It was further determined that an ICBM be developed to carry said bomb. As no ICBMs existed at the time, in reality or even in planning, development of a nuclear capable R-5 (dubbed the "R-5M") was ordered.


The International Geophysical Year

July 1953 saw the first meeting of the Comité Speciale de l'Année Géophysique Internationale (CSAGI), a special committee of the
International Council of Scientific Unions The International Council for Science (ICSU, after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the advancement of science. Its members ...
(ICSU) tasked with coordinating the
International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...
(IGY), set for 1957–58. This international effort would undertake simultaneous observations of geophysical phenomena over the entire surface of the Earth including such farflung regions as the
Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
and
Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
. At its first meeting, CSAGI invited the world's nations to participate in the IGY. Response from most prominent nations was quick. The National Research Council of the US
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
set up a US National Committee for the IGY, with
Joseph Kaplan Joseph Kaplan (September 8, 1902 – October 3, 1991) was a Hungarian-born American physicist. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130719093953/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-10-13/news/1991286049_1_perry-ellis-museum-of-art-guggenheim-museum Balt ...
serving as chairman and Hugh Odishaw as executive director. The only key nation slow in committing to the IGY was Soviet Union, which did not signal its involvement until spring 1955.


Launches


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September


October


November


December


Suborbital launch statistics


By country


By rocket


See also

*Timeline of spaceflight


References


Footnotes


{{TLS-L, year=1953, nav=on 1953 in spaceflight Spaceflight by year