THE
ENGINES THAT
CAME IN FROM THE COLD
Timeline
Around
400BC
A steam-propelled
wooden pigeon makes the first recorded rocket-like flight.
As an entertainment,
the Greek, Archytas, used steam escaping from inside a wooden pigeon
to propel the bird along a wire.
Around
100BC
Hero uses
escaping steam to create spinning sphere.
The Greek
known as Hero of Alexandria invented the aeolipile, a steam turbine
sometimes known as Hero’s Engine. Steam fed into the sphere escaped
from L-shaped nozzles on opposite sides and made the sphere spin round.
Instead of recognising it as a useful source of power however, the machine
seems to have been seen as just another entertainment.
13th
century
The first
reported use of true rockets.
Chinese
fire-arrows were the first simple solid-fuel rockets. They were very
much like modern firework rockets, with a tube of gunpowder, sealed
at the top end and attached to a long stick. When the gunpowder was
ignited, it burned rapidly to produce flame, smoke and - most importantly
- gases that escaped from the rear of the tube and created the thrust
that pushed the rocket forward. The stick kept the rocket going in the
right direction.
The first
reported use of rockets as weapons in Europe.
17th
century
The Art
of Gunnery is published in London with a 43-page section on rockets
as weapons.
The invention
of the first multi-stage rocket.
Johann
Schmidlap, a German fireworks maker, invented a ‘step rocket’
to create more spectacular displays. A large first-stage rocket carried
a smaller second-stage rocket aloft. When the first-stage burned out,
the second-stage carried on up and threw out glowing cinders to delight
the crowds below.
Rocket
science is born.
Sir Isaac
Newton publishes his three laws of motion,
which explain - among many other things - how rocket propulsion works.
18th
century
Scientists
in Russia and Germany experiment with rockets with masses of 40 kilograms
or more.
19th
century
Rockets
revived as a weapon of war.
20th
c
entury
The ‘Father
of Modern Astronautics’ suggests space exploration by rocket.
Russian
schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
realises that liquid propellants would give rockets the speed and range
they would need to escape the Earth’s atmosphere and into space.
The first
successful flight of liquid-propellant rocket is carried out on March
16th.
The rocket,
designed by the American Robert
Goddard and fuelled by gasoline and liquid
oxygen, made a 2.5 second flight, landing just 50 metres from the
launch site.
Sergei
Pavlovich Korolev forms a Moscow group for the investigation of
jet propulsion.
Germany
takes on Werner von Braun
to develop rocket-powered weapons.
The first
A4 rocket takes to the skies.
In its
first flight, Von Braun’s A4 rocket, known later as the V2, rose
only about 100 metres, then crashed into the sea, just over a kilometre
from the launch site.
A successful
A4 flight marks beginning of the space age.
At their
third attempt, von Braun’s team got the result they wanted. The
alcohol/liquid oxygen propellant carries the A4 200 kilometres to strike
the selected target.
The
first V2s are launched against London.
Sergei
Korolev witnesses US-sanctioned test launches of V2 rockets in liberated
Europe.
This
signalled the starting point for the Soviet Space Programme, culminating
in the first man in space and the first manned space station.
Werner
von Braun's rocket team relocate to the US to work on new US Space Programme.
The
first V2 is launched in the United States.
The
Soviet Union transfers all remaining rocket technology from Germany
to secret locations in the USSR.
The
launch of the first Soviet R-1 rocket, based on V2 design.
The
first entirely Soviet-designed rocket, R-2E, is launched.
First
launch of US Viking rocket.
First
launch of Bumper, a two-stage US designed
rocket combining a V2-type first-stage and a WAC Corporal second-stage.
4th
October
The
USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the
Earth.
3rd
November
Laika,
a Soviet dog, becomes first living creature to orbit the Earth.
January
America’s
first satellite is launched into orbit.
A Jupiter-Redstone
rocket, essentially a highly refined development of the V2, launches
Explorer I - America's first orbiting satellite.
October
America
launches the first unmanned lunar probe.
The
launch vehicle is an Atlas first-stage
with an Able second-stage. Unfortunately it fails 45 seconds after lift-off
when part of the structure tears away.
Soviets
launch Luna 1, which flies past the Moon in January.
In
April Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to orbit Earth, and is in space
for 108 minutes.
Less
than a month later the first American, Alan Shepard, makes a short sub-orbital
flight into space, returning immediately to Earth.
Russia
starts development of the Proton launcher, which remains in use today.
An
Atlas rocket launches the first American into orbit.
Mariner
2 is the first space probe to fly past another planet - Venus.
A Russian,
Valentina Tereshkova, becomes the first woman in space.
The
first manned Gemini flight.
A Titan
II rocket powers Virgil Grissom and John Young into space to make three
orbits of the earth - the first of a long series of flights which paved
the way for the Apollo Moon programme.
The
Soviets assemble the first N1 rocket using
NK-15 engines.
The
rocket uses 30 of the radical and highly efficient NK15 engines designed
by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. The
NK15 was the first successful closed-cycle rocket engine, developing
an extra 25 percent lifting power by channelling the exhaust products
from the pre-burner into the combustion chamber to be re-fired.
The
launch of Apollo 7, which orbits the earth for 11 days.
The
first test flight of unmanned N1 rocket, which explodes 40 kilometres
from the launch site. A second unsuccessful launch takes place in July.
Apollo
11 blasts off carrying the first humans to land on the surface of the
Moon.
Apollo
11 lands - Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men on the
Moon.
A Long
March rocket launches Mao1, China’s first space satellite.
The
three-stage rocket is 30 metres high and 2 metres in diameter. Its maximum
payload is 300 kilogrammes.
The
third and fourth N1 rockets both explode in mid-air.
The
launch of Pioneer 10, destination Jupiter.
A new
NK33 engine introduced for N1 rocket.
The
NK33 is the most powerful liquid oxygen/kerosene engine ever built.
Compared to the NK15, it has improved reliability, thrust and restart
capability.
The
Saturn V booster launches Skylab 1 into
orbit.
The
Soviet Politburo abandons the N1 programme and order rockets to be dismantled.
NK33
engines are secretly taken into store.
Viking
1 makes the first trip to Mars.
Voyagers
1 and 2 set off to explore the outer regions of the solar system.
The
first launch of the US Space Shuttle.
Russia’s
Energia rocket is launched.
A Long
March 4 rocket launches a Chinese weather satellite into orbit. China
also launches a new Weaver Girl 1 rocket.
The
first of Atlas Centaur rockets’ series of 46 successful missions.
US
rocket scientists are taken to see stored NK33s.
Scientists
from the US company Aerojet are amazed to find a store of over 60 pristine
engines, of a compact design that they had never seen before. What surprised
them most was that the engines used the closed-cycle technology that
had been rejected by American rocket scientists as being too risky.
The
first static test firing in the USA of a Russian-built NK33 engine.
China
enters the space travel arena.
The
latest version of China’s Long March rocket launches an unmanned
prototype of a re-useable capsule which has been designed to carry humans
into orbit in 21st century.
An
American Atlas rocket equipped with a single Russian RD180 rocket engine
successfully blasts off from Cape Canaveral.
The
RD180 is the latest development in closed-loop rocket technology. It
is so powerful that a single engine replaces five of the US-designed
engines used for previous Atlas rocket launches.
US/Russian
co-operation continues.
Atlas
V, a new family of US rockets incorporating the Russian RD180 engine,
will be ready for service in late 2001.
Programme
Summary
Timeline
Rocket
science
Rocket
scientists
The
rockets
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