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Atlas A
Part of Atlas
Atlas A/B/D
Atlas A/B/D
Test missiles Atlas A and Atlas B; Atlas D-Mercury
Credit: © Mark Wade
American test vehicle. First test model of Atlas ICBM. Two booster engines, no sustainer, dummy warhead. 50% reliability in 8 flight tests.

AKA: B-65;PGM-16A;SM-65A;WS 107A-1;X-11. Status: Retired 1958. First Launch: 1957-06-11. Last Launch: 1958-06-03. Number: 8 . Thrust: 1,334.50 kN (300,008 lbf). Gross mass: 81,647 kg (180,000 lb). Height: 28.00 m (91.00 ft). Diameter: 3.05 m (10.00 ft). Apogee: 120 km (70 mi).

Maximum range: 900 km (550 mi).

Stage Data - Atlas A

Historical Essay © Andreas Parsch

Convair B-65-SM-65-CGM-16-HGM-16 Atlas

The Atlas was the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) deployed by the USA. Its descendents are still in use today as civilian and military space launch vehicles.

The Atlas development can be traced back to the days immediately after World War II, when captured German rocket and missile technology supported many new missile research studies. In April 1946, Consolidated-Vultee (later Convair) began project MX-774 to study long-range ballistic missiles. The studies led to a test rocket, designated RTV-A-2 Hiroc, which was to pioneer several new design techniques which would later be used in the Atlas. The Hiroc featured a gimballed rocket nozzle to steer the vehicle by thrust-vectoring instead of weight- and drag-increasing control fins, and had a separable nose cone for the payload. The most radical feature of the RTV-A-2 was its internal pressure stabilized flight structure. The missile's skin was very thin, and was inflated by internal pressure like a balloon. This significantly reduced the empty weight of the vehicle. However, it also made the missile rather fragile, because a single hole in the skin would lead to the collapse of the whole structure, just like a limp balloon. Because limited funding allowed only to pursue the most promising missile projects, and long-range ballistic missiles were deemed to be too far in the future, MX-774 was cancelled in June 1947. However, Convair was allowed to complete three Hiroc vehicles, and the first of these flew in July 1948. All three flights were only partially successful but helped a lot to validate the new design concepts.

After the cancellation of MX-774, Convair continued low-key internal studies on ballistic missiles, developing the idea of the "one and one half" stage rocket. In this type of design, both booster and sustainer engine(s) would ignite at lift-off, and the boosters would be dropped later in the flight. This circumvented the difficulty of having to ignite the sustainer at high altitude, which was then considered a potential problem. When military funding sharply increased after outbreak of the Korean War, Convair was awarded a contract for the long-range ballistic missile project MX-1593 in January 1951. Later in 1951, the USAF decided to assign aircraft-like designations to its guided missiles, and the designation B-65 was assigned to the MX-1593 missile (named Atlas by this time).

In 1953 Convair had completed the initial design studies. The Atlas was to be a huge 27 m (90 ft) long, 3.6 m (12 ft) wide rocket, with five engines producting 2700+ kN (600000+ lb) of total thrust. The size was deemed necessary to launch the expected very heavy (65 ton) thermonuclear warhead to intercontinental range. Because of the limited accuracy of then available intercontinental guidance systems, a megaton-class thermonuclear warhead was necessary for the Atlas to be effective against hardened targets. A ten-year development program was approved, with an initial operational deployment planned for 1963. To minimize risk, it was decided to develop a single-engine test vehicle first, designated X-11, followed by a three-engine X-12 test vehicle and an XB-65 five-engine strategic missile prototype.

In 1954, the H-bomb tests in the Pacific showed that the warhead for the Atlas could be made significantly smaller and lighter than expected. Therefore, the five-engine XB-65 design was cancelled and replaced by a much smaller three-engine design. The booster engines were North American (Rocketdyne) LR89, and the sustainer engine was a Rocketdyne LR105 enigne, both fueled with RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen. Two small Rocketdyne LR101 vernier engines were used for fine-tuning thrust and directional control. The whole Atlas propulsion system was known as MA-2. In 1955, in the light of discovering Russian ICBM activities, the Atlas development was accelerated, and it was approved to flight test preliminary prototype models which lacked some feartures of the planned production missile. The XB-65A Atlas A had only booster engines, and a dummy warhead. In August 1955, the USAF dropped all aircraft-like designations for guided missiles, and the Atlas became the SM-65.

On 11 June 1957 the first attempt to fly an XSM-65A was made, but due to a booster malfunction the missile had to be destroyed a few seconds after lift-off. The first successful Atlas A flight to the full range of 1100 km (600 nm) was the third one, on 17 December 1957. Atlas A testing was completed in June 1958.


More at: Atlas A.

Family: pad-launched, test vehicle. Country: USA. Engines: B-2C, XLR89-1. Launch Sites: Edwards, Cape Canaveral, Cape Canaveral LC14, Cape Canaveral LC12. Stages: Atlas A stage. Agency: Convair.
Photo Gallery

WS-107WS-107
WS-107 Concept 2. First mock-up of the Atlas missile in the three-chamber configuration.
Credit: Ronald Wade



1954 March 1 - . LV Family: Atlas, Navaho. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1954 May 17 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1954 June 21 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1954 July - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1954 August - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
Late 1954 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1954 December - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1954 December 16 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
Early 1955 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1955 February 14 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1955 March 6 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1955 April - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
Late 1955 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1955 Dec - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 May - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 May 3 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 June 15 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 June 21 - . Launch Site: Edwards. Launch Complex: Edwards. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 September - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 September 28 - . Launch Site: Edwards. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 November 30 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 December - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1956 December 21 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
Spring 1957 - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1957 March - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1957 June - . LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1957 June 11 - . 19:37 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC14. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A. FAILURE: Failure in the booster fuel system.. Failed Stage: 1.
1957 September 25 - . 19:57 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC14. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A. FAILURE: Failure in the booster fuel system.. Failed Stage: 1.
1957 December 17 - . 17:39 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC14. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1958 January 10 - . 15:48 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC12. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.
1958 February 7 - . 19:37 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC14. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A. FAILURE: Failure. Failed Stage: 1.
1958 February 20 - . 17:46 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC12. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A. FAILURE: Failure. Failed Stage: 1.
1958 April 5 - . 17:01 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC14. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A. FAILURE: Failure. Failed Stage: 1.
1958 June 3 - . 21:28 GMT - . Launch Site: Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex: Cape Canaveral LC12. LV Family: Atlas. Launch Vehicle: Atlas A.

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