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75th
Anniversary of First Liquid Fueled Rocket Launch
The world's first
liquid-fuel rocket was launched on March 16, 1926, seventy five
years ago. The original rocket flew from Goddard's aunt Effie Ward's
farm near Auburn, Massachusetts, to an altitude of 12.5 m (41 ft),
landing 56.1 m (184 ft) away, crashing into the snow. The flight
took 2.5 seconds. Goddard's 3 m (10 ft) long rocket utilized
gasoline and liquid oxygen for its flight. The rocket weighed only
4.5  kg
(10 1/2 lbm), including fuel.
NASA’s Goddard
Space Center, to commemorate the anniversary, will host a series of
demonstration flights of model rockets, including a replica of
Goddard's first rocket, on Sunday, March 18, at 1 p.m. EST. Visitors
will be invited to launch their own model rockets after the
demonstration.
Dr. Robert
Hutchings Goddard received two U.S. patents in 1914. One was for a
rocket using liquid fuel. The other was for a two or three stage
rocket using solid fuel. His calculations showed he could achieve
better performance using liquid propellants, so in 1921 he switched
his work to liquid propellants. He originally thought of using pumps
to pump in the propellants into the combustion chamber, but he
initially did not have success with these. He therefore sought to
test a basic liquid propellant system to see if the principle
worked, and if possible to achieve a flight.
On January 20,
1926, he successfully tested a liquid propellant motor in a static
test in which the motor produced more thrust than the rocket's
weight. He next set out to adapt the motor to a flight rocket. He
wanted to shroud the rocket with a streamlined cover and to include
a parachute for the rocket's recovery, but soon realized these
features would add too much weight to the rocket and that it might
not fly. Goddard therefore left off the covering and parachute.
Goddard and Henry
Sachs (a machinist at Clark University who had helped make the
rocket) loaded the rocket. Goddard was also assisted by his wife,
Esther, as the official photographer and Percy Roope, an Assistant
Physics Professor at Clark University. Sachs lighted the torch and
ignited the pyrotechnic igniter. Goddard controlled the valves. At
first, when the combustion was started, the rocket would not rise
because the thrust was lower than the weight of the rocket. Then,
when it exceeded the weight and reached an estimated 8.2 kg (18 lbm),
the rocket first climbed a few centimeters (inches) then shot up,
but was not that stable.
Goddard
characteristically used parts of one rocket toward making other
rockets. It is therefore believed that parts of the original rocket
which flew on March 16, 1926 may have been incorporated into the
making of his rocket which flew on April 3, 1926. That rocket is on
display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, in the
Rocketry and Spaceflight Gallery. It flew from the same location and
was in the air for 4.2 seconds and landed 15.2 m (50 ft) from the
launch stand. (No blueprints of either of these rockets were found
among the Goddard papers.)
During his
lifetime, Goddard built and launched 35 rockets. He pioneered the
development of such things as turbo-pump systems,
gyro-stabilization, aerodynamic and jet-deflector flight controls,
automatic sequencing launch systems, flight trajectory tracking and
recording devices, gimbal-mounted clustered rocket motor and
parachute recovery systems. Goddard died on August 10, 1945.
NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, was established on May 1,
1959, in his memory.
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