Polaris A1 Missile

The Polaris A1 Missile is the first missile in the Polaris family. It was introduced by German rocket scientists before WWII. At Kummersdorf, Wernher von Braun and his team built the first of the planned A series of rockets, the A-1. The A-1 was the grandfather of most modern rockets. It used a pressure-fed propellant system burning liquid oxygen and 75% alcohol. The A-1s regeneratively-cooled motor had a thrust of 300 kgf (660 lbf, 2.9 kN), and a burning time of 16 seconds. It weighed 330 pounds (150 kg), was four and a half feet long, one foot in diameter, and was stabilized by a 90 pound gyroscope located in the nose. The first attempt at a static test firing was made on December 21, 1932. (Huzel 1962, p. 235). Within half a second, the rocket exploded. Development was subsequently abandoned (Gatland 1989, p. 10).