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Atlas Ballistic Missile
Atlas Ballistic Missile
Atlas Ballistic Missile
world. The program started when the United States Air Force (USAF) discovered that
their standpoint about such type of weapon was wrong. This concept of ICBM was
recognized as feasible in February 1954. Intimidated by the magnitude of the task,
the USAF stablished a completely new directive structure and created a special
company (Ramo-Woolridge Inc.) to direct the program under a new department of the
USAF, denominated Western Development Division. The command of this department was
entrusted to a young, dynamic and brilliant brigadier general, Bernard A.
Schriever. In 1954 these developments did not went unnoticed for the Convair
Division of General Dynamics. Years before, in 1946, this company had been the only
one in going ahead with the proposal of the USAAF (United States Army Air Force,
predecessor of the USAF) to build an ICBM having 8000 kilometers of range. Under
the direction of Karel J. Bossart, the team Vultee Field built a test vehicle, the
MX-774, which flew thrice in 1948 and tested characteristics so advanced as an
engine mounted in suspension, a detachable conical nose and a structure built in
stainless steel, so thin that it should be kept inflated like a globe.[p]
In January 1955, Convair was awarded the main contract for the huge Weapon System
107A, denominated Atlas, albeit the missile received as well the designation SM-65.
It was a very important
program, to the point that in the following month of June it was granted the
highest national priority, and to carry it out the engineers of the team led by
Bossart were installed in a large
coincidence"; the hundred thousand different precision pieces - coming from about
3500 suppliers - were developed simultaneously and to make them all compatible was
precisely one of the problems in
a weapon which, even with the basis provided by the former project Navaho, was
opening its own way in every direction. Some of the decisions that had to be taken
in 1955 resulted wrong, but that
was part of the price paid for a truncated development cycle. To nobody was allowed
to seriously delay or reduce the weapon system that was sought.[p]
One of the decisions was to use inflatable fuel deposits built with very thin walls
and fill them with liquid oxygen and RP-1 fuel to feed the Rocketdyne engines of a
type that had been already
developed. Other was unique: because it was known not much about the ignition in
the upper atmosphere of large combustion chambers and an ICBM required to be able
to detach the phases that
constituted its propulsion systems already used, the Atlas was projected as an "one
phase and half" missile. In the conic base of the inflatable deposit there was a
mounting for a lift rocket LR 89
of 25855 kilograms of thrust at sea level. Around the base there was a ring for a
booster unit, of creased structure (because it was not pressurized), which carried
two engines LR 105 of 68040
kilograms of thrust each (or 74884 kilograms in the last versions). At each side of
the ring in the base there was a little engine Vernier LR 101 of 454 kilograms of
thrust for the final adjustment
of the trajectory. The five engines consumed fuel from the main deposits and all of
them were ignited before the launching. Elapsed about two minutes and 20 seconds,
the booster unit turned off and
detached. The lift rocket and the two Vernier burned then during another three
minutes in a maximum range flight.[p]
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The first launching was of an Atlas 4A - which was provided only with the booster
rockets - and it took place from Cape Canaveral the 11th June 1957. One of the
boosters turned off prematurely and
the missile was destroyed by the security range officer, after its inflatable
deposit effectuated violent jumps and turns. The Atlas 6A made it slightly better
the following 25th September. The
Atlas 12A was already a complete success and the second missile of the B series,
fitted with an operative lifter, effectuated a flight of 4000 kilometers the 2nd
August 1958. The range set in the
project was achieved in November of the same year and a launching in charge of a
crew of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), from an operative terrestrial
installation, took place in September 1959.
connect this system - GE/Burroughs - to the Titan and the Atlas was fitted with an
inertial guide.[p]
The payload of the Atlas C consisted of the reentry vehicle General Electric Mk 2,
with a protection in copper to endure the friction of the atmosphere. Many of these
models C were used for the
also designated as SM-65D and later CGM-16D, with the reentry vehicle of blunt
surface and superior characteristics General Electric Mk 3. It had also an airier
profile and protective skirts for the exhaust flames. It reached operative status
in 1960 in Warren Airbase, Wyoming. In this place, the 574th Squadron occupied six
non-protected emplacements, completely above the surface and with a sliding ceiling
to allow the missiles to be erected for the fuel load and subsequent launching. The
565th Strategic Missiles Squadron had three triple emplacements, spaced each other
to give them dispersion and with sliding ceilings of side opening that could save
precious minutes in the required reaction time, which was estimated in about half a
hour. The 549th Squadron was provided with
but it had three squadrons each one of three Atlas E (CGM-16E), with more powerful
boosters and often the reentry vehicle Avco Mk 4. The Atlas for training, USM-65D
and USM-65E, were turned into