"KAPUTNIK!"

Early American Launch Vehicle Failures

Too often, early American launch vehicles sent the engineers back to the drawing boards

 

Well before the beginning of what came to be known as the "Space Race," the Americans had been planning to launch a small satellite into orbit for a while, as part of the U.S. contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The plan, known as Project Vanguard (authorized in 1955), was to launch a small "IGY Satellite", about the size of a grapefruit or softball with radio antennnas sticking out of it, to determine atmospheric density and conduct geodetic measurements. The launch vehicle was the tall, thin, Navy Vanguard rocket. But then, the launch by the Russians of Sputnik in Oct. 1957 threw the whole program into a bit of a panic. There was enormous pressure to launch and launch NOW. The event was carried live on national television on Dec. 6, 1957. The launch site: Cape Canaveral. At the end of the dramatic countdown, however, the first stage of the Vanguard failed, causing a loss of thrust after 2 seconds. It sank back down and just blew up, right there on the pad, right in front of everybody. The payload, the little IGY Satellite, got blown into the weeds, and sat there beeping away on the radio, loud and clear, as if nothing had happened. It was an embarrassing setback for the Americans in these pre-NASA days; one newspaper dubbed the flight, "KAPUTNIK!" NASA Photo.

 

July 29, 1960: Mercury-Atlas 1 lights up and prepares to lift off from Launch Complex 14 at the Cape. Note the absence of an escape tower atop the Mercury capsule-the vehicle is, obviously, unmanned. This is one of the first tests of the combination of the Mercury spacecraft and Atlas missile. The mission objectives are to check the integrity of the spacecraft structure and afterbody shingles for a re-entry associated with a critical abort, and to evaluate the open-loop performance of the Atlas abort-sensing instrumentation system. Standard posigrade rockets are to be used to separate the spacecraft from the Atlas, but the retrorockets are dummies. And while the vehicle itself is unmanned, the guys who will eventually have to fly it-the Original 7 astronauts-are watching with great interest. One day, after all, they are gonna have to ride that thing. NASA Photo.

 

And then, it all goes to hell in a handbasket. 58 sec. into the flight, at 42,800 ft, going 1,701 MPH, Mercury-Atlas 1 blew up. The adapter section between the capsule and the missile suffered a structural failure, and the thin-skinned missile popped like a balloon. Since there was no escape tower aboard, and the standard capsule recovery system wasn't designed to function at that point in the flight, the spacecraft hit the water like a shell from a battleship-and this was the result. NASA Photo.

 

Nov. 21, 1960: Mercury-Redstone 1-the "Five-Inch Flight." A planned suborbital test flight ends 1 sec. after liftoff due to faulty ignition circuitry-about 5 inches after liftoff. As programmed, the escape tower fires-and the Redstone settles back down on the pad intact, and almost fully-fueled, just sitting there on the pad with nothing holding it up. A stiff breeze could have blown it over, and that probably would have resulted in an explosion. Hours passed as NASA tried to figure out a way to defuel the missile and secure it. NASA Photo.

 

April 25, 1961: Mercury-Atlas 3 was launched from Cape Canaveral in an attempt to orbit the spacecraft with a 'mechanical astronaut' (essentially, a crash-test dummy) aboard. After lift-off, the Atlas failed to roll to a 70 degree heading and to pitch over into the proper trajectory. The abort-sensing system activated the escape rockets prior to the launch vehicle's destruction by the range safety officer after approximately 40 sec. of flight at about 16,400 ft. The spacecraft then coasted up to 24,000 ft, deployed its parachutes, and landed in the Atlantic Ocean 2,000 yards north of the launch pad. The spacecraft was recovered and was found to have incurred only superficial damage; it was then shipped back to McDonnell for refitting. NASA Photo.