The Viking Rocket---Some New Observations
- Paper number
IAC-16,E4,2,x31768
- Coauthor
Mr. Frank H. Winter, National Air and Space Museum, United States
- Year
2016
- Abstract
First, it should be stated that the idea for this paper was presented to the author by his long-time friend and colleague, the late Frederick I. Ordway, III, during the course of our collaboration on the book Pioneering American Rocketry: The Reaction Motors, Inc. (RMI) Story, 1941-1972. Very sadly, however, Fred Ordway passed away on 1 July 2014. A prolific and world-known historian of spaceflight, he missed the eventual publication of this book a few months later, in 2015. Therefore, I am dedicating this paper to his cherished memory. It was also during the course of preparing the above book, that new facts and insights were discovered and documented on the history of this very important and historic vehicle. In fact, Reaction Motors, Inc. (RMI) –- America's first liquid-propellant rocket company---was responsible for the 20,000-lb thrust XLR-10 rocket for this vehicle from 1946 and wrote Ordway, "At the time, the Viking was the most advanced liquid-propellant rocket under development in America." Indeed, it incorporated several revolutionary technical developments, new details of which are covered in this paper. The Viking was not only the U.S.'s first, large-scale liquid-propellant rocket but became the first single-stage U.S. rocket to enter space and made several such flights during its flight phases from 1949 to 1955, but modified Vikings No. 13 and 14 served as test vehicles for Project Vanguard, America's first vehicle designed specifically for launching satellites. Apart from these achievements, one of the recovered and reconstructed, flown Viking rockets became the first flown space rocket displayed in a museum, initially, at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, and was later transferred to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and remains on exhibit today.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)