Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge,California,Crescenta Valley,United States. Founded in 1936 by Caltech researchers,the laboratory is now owned and sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and administered and managed by the California Institute of Technology.
JATO is a type of assisted take-off for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets. The term JATO is used interchangeably with the term RATO,for rocket-assisted take-off.
This article gives a concise timeline of rocket and missile technology.
John Whiteside Parsons was an American rocket engineer,chemist,and Thelemite occultist. Associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech),Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first rocket engine to use a castable,composite rocket propellant,and pioneered the advancement of both liquid-fuel and solid-fuel rockets.
Redstone Arsenal is a United States Army base adjacent to Huntsville,Alabama in the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. A census-designated place in Madison County,Alabama,United States,it is part of the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. The Arsenal is a host to over 75 tenant agencies including the Department of Defense (DoD),Department of Justice (DOJ),the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),and NASA's largest field center,the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Theodore von Kármán was a Hungarian-American mathematician,aerospace engineer,and physicist who worked in aeronautics and astronautics. He was responsible for crucial advances in aerodynamics characterizing supersonic and hypersonic airflow. The human-defined threshold of outer space is named the "Kármán line" in recognition of his work. Kármán is regarded as an outstanding aerodynamic theoretician of the 20th century.
A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid,usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines,producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward,in accordance with Newton's third law. Most rocket engines use the combustion of reactive chemicals to supply the necessary energy,but non-combusting forms such as cold gas thrusters and nuclear thermal rockets also exist. Vehicles propelled by rocket engines are commonly used by ballistic missiles and rockets. Rocket vehicles carry their own oxidiser,unlike most combustion engines,so rocket engines can be used in a vacuum to propel spacecraft and ballistic missiles.
Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova,California,with divisions in Redmond,Washington,Orange and Gainesville in Virginia,and Camden,Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp. In 2013,Aerojet was merged by GenCorp with the former Pratt &Whitney Rocketdyne to form Aerojet Rocketdyne.
The MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range,solid fuel,surface-to-surface missile developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The missiles were built by Sperry Utah Company. The Sergeant was the third and last in a series of JPL rockets for the US Army whose names correspond to the progression in Army enlisted ranks,starting with Private and Corporal.
The WAC Corporal was the first sounding rocket developed in the United States and the first vehicle to achieve hypersonic speeds. It was an offshoot of the Corporal program,that was started by a partnership between the United States Army Ordnance Corps and the California Institute of Technology in June 1944 with the ultimate goal of developing a military ballistic missile.
The Aggregat series was a set of ballistic missile designs developed in 1933–1945 by a research program of Nazi Germany's Army (Heer). Its greatest success was the A4,more commonly known as the V2.
The MGM-5 Corporal missile was a nuclear-armed tactical surface-to-surface missile. It was the first guided weapon authorized by the United States to carry a nuclear warhead. A guided tactical ballistic missile,the Corporal could deliver either a nuclear fission,high-explosive,fragmentation or chemical warhead up to a range of 75 nautical miles (139 km).
Louis Gerhardus Dunn (1908-1979) was a South African-born engineer who played a key role in the development of early American missiles and launch vehicles.
The Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program and the preceding Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project worked to develop a nuclear propulsion system for aircraft. The United States Army Air Forces initiated Project NEPA on May 28,1946. NEPA operated until May 1951,when the project was transferred to the joint Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)/USAF ANP. The USAF pursued two different systems for nuclear-powered jet engines,the Direct Air Cycle concept,which was developed by General Electric,and Indirect Air Cycle,which was assigned to Pratt &Whitney. The program was intended to develop and test the Convair X-6,but was canceled in 1961 before that aircraft was built. The total cost of the program from 1946 to 1961 was about $1 billion.
Frank Joseph Malina was an American aeronautical engineer and painter,known for his pioneering work in early rocketry.
The Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT),was a research institute created in 1926,at first specializing in aeronautics research. In 1930,Hungarian scientist Theodore von Kármán accepted the directorship of the lab and emigrated to the United States. Under his leadership,work on rockets began there in 1936. GALCIT was the first—and from 1936 to 1940 the only—university-based rocket research center. Based on GALCIT's JATO project at the time,the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was established under a contract with the United States Army in November 1943.
Project Hermes was a missile research program run by the Ordnance Corps of the United States Army from November 15,1944,to December 31,1954,in response to Germany's rocket attacks in Europe during World War II. The program was to determine the missile needs of army field forces. A research and development partnership between the Ordnance Corps and General Electric started November 20,1944 and resulted in the "development of long-range missiles that could be used against both ground targets and high-altitude aircraft."
Jack Norval James was a US rocket engineer who worked for over 35 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena,California,USA. His work as a Project Manager for NASA's Mariner program in the 1960s included the first planetary flyby and first photographs by a space probe of Mars. He received commendations for his work from several US Presidents,and his awards include the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1965) and the Stuart Ballantine Medal (1967).
Edward Seymour Forman was an American engineer and inventor known for his pioneering work in early rocketry in the United States. Forman,along with his collaborators in Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT),demonstrated the first practical jet-assisted take-off (JATO) of an aircraft in the United States. Forman was among the GALCIT innovators that went on to found Aerojet General Corporation,the largest rocket technology manufacturer in the 1940s,and the GALCIT Rocket Research Group itself became the precursor of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The ORDCIT program to develop a ballistic missile called Corporal was a progressive one. The original design was called XF30L20,000 which envisioned a 30 in (760 mm) diameter liquid fueled missile with a 20,000 lbf (89 kN) thrust engine and was ventured in the summer of 1944. The WAC Corporal sounding rocket was developed in 1945,providing experience with liquid fueled ballistic rocketry. The second phase gave experience with a redesigned and refined rocket and engine the following year. What was learned was applied to the Corporal program.
