Declassified

AGGREGAT 4

The Progenitor

"The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet."

— WERNHER VON BRAUN

FIG 1.A // INTERNAL SCHEMATIC

First to Space

On 20 June 1944, a V-2 rocket (MW 18014) became the first man-made object to cross the Kármán line (100 km), reaching an apogee of 176 km.

Though built as a weapon of terror, its technology—the turbopumps, the guidance vanes, the liquid propellant—became the DNA of every rocket that followed, from the R-7 to the Saturn V.

Propellant
Ethanol / Liquid O2
Thrust
25,000 kgf
Max Speed
5,760 km/h
Guidance
Gyroscopic Inertial