GoKawiilThe Race to Recreate and Improve the V-2
The V-2 (Vengeance Weapon 2, Vergeltungswaffe 2), also known by its technical name A-4 (Aggregat 4), was the first guided long-range ballistic missile. Forced and enslaved laborers from various Nazi concentration camp systems built the V-2. While the missile had relatively little effect on the war effort, the V-2 became important for the history of rocketry because both the United States and the Soviet Union used captured V-2s as a basis for developing their own large rockets and missiles.
The American Effort
At the time that Germany was launching V-2 missiles against war-torn Europe, long-range missiles were still in the planning stages in the United States. The WAC Corporal rocket represented the state of U.S. rocketry at the war’s close in 1945. It was a small liquid-propellant rocket developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the U.S. Army. It used an attached solid-propellant booster to clear the launch tower. The first WAC was launched at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico in October 1945. It reached an altitude of about 45 miles (75 kilometers). Improved versions of the rocket reached 60 miles (100 kilometers). The WAC Corporal was a sounding rocket, meaning that it conducted scientific research during its short suborbital flights.
At the end of the war, the United States carried out a secret intelligence plan known as Operation Paperclip, which brought more than 1,600 scientists, engineers, and technicians from Germany for employment in the U.S. government. Along with other scientific and engineering applications, Operation Paperclip provided the United States with access to the V-2 program. The U.S. gained captured V-2 missiles and access to many of the engineers who had designed them. V-2 engineers such as Wernher von Braun advised the technicians from General Electric who were charged with identifying and reassembling V-2 components in White Sands, New Mexico.
This V-2 was displayed at the war's end in Washington, D.C., near 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. It symbolized not only the end of the war, but also the new shape of possible conflicts to come. (Smithsonian Institution)
The Viking represented the U.S. Navy’s refinement of the V-2 into a more powerful rocket. The U.S. Navy began work on a sounding rocket to meet its research needs and to gain experience in designing and building large missiles in 1946. From 1949 through 1957, 14 Vikings were built and flown to test different features and carry larger instrument payloads. Viking's design introduced important innovations in control, structures, and propulsion. No two Vikings were identical.
Popular space writer Willy Ley stands beside a late model Viking sounding rocket (RTV-N-12) on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, 1956. (Smithsonian Institution)
The Viking rocket was used mainly to study the region of the upper atmosphere that affects long-range radio communication. The Naval Research Laboratory also conducted a study and test launch to investigate Viking's potential as a tactical ballistic missile.
It was the Army's Corporal missile, however, that became the first U.S. ballistic missile to approach the capability of the German V-2. The Corporal went into production in the early 1950s and was deployed by the U.S. Army in Europe until the mid-1960s. Concurrently, the WAC Corporal was repurposed into the Bumper WAC, a two-stage sounding rocket with a V-2 comprising the first stage and the WAC rocket comprising the second. This combination created the first two-stage liquid-propellant rocket.
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