Unit 1

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unit 1 (A1 for short) was the name of a test rocket developed under the direction of Wernher von Braun in 1933 with a length of 1.40 meters, a diameter of 0.3 meters and a takeoff weight of 150 kilograms. The take-off thrust of the engine operated with alcohol and liquid oxygen (LOX) was 2.94  kN (300  kp ). The fuel was delivered by compressed nitrogen gas.

Contrary to Walter Dornberger's suggestion, stabilization in flight should not be done by twisting , but by a stabilizing top in the tip, since moving liquids in the tanks of a rotating rocket would have an unfavorable effect on flight behavior.

The A1 exploded during a start attempt at the Kummersdorf test site . No further tests were carried out, as it turned out that the A1 was top-heavy due to the unfavorable position of the stabilization gyro and did not fly stable.

Instead, the successor rocket, Aggregat 2, was developed, the top of which was located in the center of the rocket.

literature

  • Olaf Przybilski: Rocket engines from the German Army Armed Forces Office. Volume 1. Mixing strategies in injector development in Kummersdorf . BoD-Verlag, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 978-3-7386-3199-9 .

Web links