Image:Redstone Missile on Launch Pad-5800669.jpg

Redstone missile CC (denoting built by Chrysler Corporation)-1002 on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 16, 1958. Redstone missile CC-1002 was the first Block I Tactical System missile and the first Redstone launched by US Army troops: Battery A, 217th Field Artillery Missile Battalion, 40th Artillery Group (Redstone). The Redstone ballistic missile was a high-accuracy, liquid-propelled, surface-to-surface missile developed by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama, under the direction of Dr. von Braun. The Redstone engine was a modified and improved version of the Air Force's Navaho cruise missile engine of the late forties. The A-series, as this would be known, utilized a cylindrical combustion chamber as compared with the bulky, spherical V-2 chamber. By 1951, the Army was moving rapidly toward the design of the Redstone missile, and production was begun in 1952. Redstone rockets became the "reliable workhorse" for America's early space program. As an example of the versatility, Redstone was utilized in the booster for Explorer 1, the first American satellite, with no major changes to the engine or missile

MSFC-5800669

16 May 1958

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC)