Timeline of rocket and missile technology
Encyclopedia

15th Century

  • 1448 - During the era of Sejong the Great, the 4th King of the Joseon Dynasty
    Joseon Dynasty
    Joseon , was a Korean state founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries. It was founded in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Goryeo at what is today the city of Kaesong. Early on, Korea was retitled and the capital was relocated to modern-day Seoul...

     of Korea, Koreans invented the World's first gunpowdered multi-missile launchers called Singijeon
    Singijeon
    Singijeon or Shinkichon is a multi-launch rocket invented by Korean general Choe Mu-seon in 1377, during the Goryeo Dynasty under King U...

     or Hwacha
    Hwacha
    Hwacha or Hwach'a is the world's first multiple rocket launcher developed and used in Joseon Korea. It had the ability to fire up to 100 steel-tipped rockets, or 200 Singijeon flaming arrow projectiles from a range of 500 yards in multiple salvos...

    .

17th Century

  • 1650 - Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part") is printed in Amsterdam, about a year before the death of its author, Kazimierz Siemienowicz
    Kazimierz Siemienowicz
    Kazimierz Siemienowicz , was a Polish-Lithuanian general of artillery, gunsmith, military engineer, artillery specialist and pioneer of rocketry. Born in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he served the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a federation of Poland and the Grand Duchy, and in the...

    .

18th century

  • 1798 - Tipu Sultan
    Tipu Sultan
    Tipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...

    , the King of the state of Mysore in India, develops and uses iron rockets against the British Army.

19th century

  • 1803 - The British Army develops the Congreve rocket
    Congreve rocket
    The Congreve Rocket was a British military weapon designed and developed by Sir William Congreve in 1804.The rocket was developed by the British Royal Arsenal following the experiences of the Second, Third and Fourth Mysore Wars. The wars fought between the British East India Company and the...

     based on weapons used against them by Tipu Sultan
    Tipu Sultan
    Tipu Sultan , also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the son of Hyder Ali, at that time an officer in the Mysorean army, and his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr-un-Nissa...

    .

  • 1806 - Claude Ruggieri an italian living in France launched animals on rockets, and recovered them using parachutes. He was prevented from launching a child by police. His rockets were capable of launching rams.

  • 1813 - "A Treatise on the Motion of Rockets" by William Moore
    William Moore (British mathematician)
    William Moore was a British mathematician and early contributor to rocket theory. He worked at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. His 1813 Treatise was the first exposition of rocket mechanics based on Newton's third law of motion...

     – first appearance of the rocket equation

  • 1865 - Jules Verne
    Jules Verne
    Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

     publishes From the Earth to the Moon
    From the Earth to the Moon
    From the Earth to the Moon is a humorous science fantasy novel by Jules Verne and is one of the earliest entries in that genre. It tells the story of the president of a post-American Civil War gun club in Baltimore, his rival, a Philadelphia maker of armor, and a Frenchman, who build an enormous...

     as a humorous science fantasy story about a space gun
    Space gun
    A space gun is a method of launching an object into outer space using a large gun, or cannon. It provides a method of non-rocket spacelaunch‎.In the HARP Project a U.S...

     launching a manned spacecraft equipped with rockets for landing on the Moon, but eventually used for another orbital maneuver
    Orbital maneuver
    In spaceflight, an orbital maneuver is the use of propulsion systems to change the orbit of a spacecraft.For spacecraft far from Earth—for example those in orbits around the Sun—an orbital maneuver is called a deep-space maneuver .-delta-v:...

    .

20th century

  • 1903 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
    Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
    Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was an Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory. Along with his followers the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics...

     begins a series of papers discussing the use of rocket
    Rocket
    A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

    ry to reach outer space, space suit
    Space suit
    A space suit is a garment worn to keep an astronaut alive in the harsh environment of outer space. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extra-vehicular activity , work done outside spacecraft...

    s, and colonization of the solar system
    Solar System
    The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

    . Two key points discussed in his works are liquid fuels and staging.

  • 1922 - Hermann Oberth
    Hermann Oberth
    Hermann Julius Oberth was an Austro-Hungarian-born German physicist and engineer. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics.- Early life :...

     publishes Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("By Rocket into Planetary Space").

  • 1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid fuel rocket.

  • 1927 - Verein für Raumschiffahrt
    Verein für Raumschiffahrt
    The Verein für Raumschiffahrt was a German amateur rocket association prior to World War II that included members outside of Germany...

     (VfR - "Spaceflight Society") founded in Germany.

  • 1929 - Woman in the Moon, considered to be one of the first "serious" science fiction films.

  • 1939 - Katyusha multiple rocket launchers are a type of rocket artillery
    Rocket artillery
    Rocket artillery is a type of artillery equipped with rocket launchers instead of conventional guns or mortars.Types of rocket artillery pieces include multiple rocket launchers.-History:...

     first built and fielded by the Soviet Union
    Soviet Union
    The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

    .

  • 1942 - Wernher von Braun
    Wernher von Braun
    Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...

     and Walter Dornberger
    Walter Dornberger
    Major-General Dr Walter Robert Dornberger was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World Wars I and II. He was a leader of Germany's V-2 rocket program and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Center....

     launch the first V-2 rocket
    V-2 rocket
    The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...

     at Peenemünde
    Peenemünde
    The Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the Army Weapons Office ....

     in northern Germany.

  • 1942 - A V-2 rocket becomes the first man-made object in space
    Outer space
    Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....

    .

  • 1942 - Case bonded castable solid rocket
    Solid rocket
    A solid rocket or a solid-fuel rocket is a rocket engine that uses solid propellants . The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder; they were used by the Chinese in warfare as early as the 13th century and later by the Mongols, Arabs, and Indians.All rockets used some form of...

     motors

  • 1945 - Lothar Sieber
    Lothar Sieber
    Lothar Sieber was a German test pilot who was killed in the first vertical take-off manned rocket flight, in a Bachem Ba 349 "Natter"....

     dies after the first vertical take-off manned rocket flight in a Bachem Ba 349
    Bachem Ba 349
    The Bachem Ba 349 Natter was a World War II German point-defence rocket powered interceptor, which was to be used in a very similar way to a manned surface-to-air missile. After vertical take-off, which eliminated the need for airfields, the majority of the flight to the Allied bombers was to be...

     "Natter"

  • 1949 - Willy Ley
    Willy Ley
    Willy Ley was a German-American science writer and space advocate who helped popularize rocketry and spaceflight in both Germany and the United States. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.-Life:...

     publishes The Conquest of Space

  • 1952 - Wernher von Braun discusses the technical details of a manned exploration of Mars
    Mars
    Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

     in The Mars Project
    The Mars Project
    The Mars Project is a nonfiction science book by German rocket physicist, astronautics engineer and space architect, Wernher von Braun. It was translated from the original German by Henry J. White and first published in English by the University of Illinois Press in 1953.The Mars Project is a...

    .

  • 1953 - Colliers Magazine publishes a series of articles on man's future in space, igniting the interest of people around the world. The series includes numerous articles by Ley and von Braun, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell.

  • 1957 - Launch of the first ICBM, the USSR
    Soviet Union
    The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

    's R-7 (8K71), known to NATO as the SS-6 Sapwood.

  • 1957 - The USSR launches Sputnik 1
    Sputnik 1
    Sputnik 1 ) was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space...

    , the first artificial satellite.

  • 1958 - The U.S. launches Explorer 1, the first American artificial satellite, on a Jupiter-C
    Jupiter-C
    The Jupiter-C was an American sounding rocket used for three sub-orbital spaceflights in 1956 and 1957 to test re-entry nosecones that were later to be deployed on the more advanced PGM-19 Jupiter mobile missile....

     rocket.

  • 1958 - US launches their first ICBM, the Atlas
    Atlas (missile)
    The SM-65 Atlas was the first intercontinental ballistic missile developed and deployed by the United States. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by Convair Division of General Dynamics at the Kearny Mesa assembly plant north of San Diego, California...

    -B (the Atlas-A was a test article only).

  • 1961 - the USSR launches Vostok 1
    Vostok 1
    Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight in the Vostok program and the first human spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961. The flight took Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, into space. The flight marked the first time that a human entered outer...

    , Yuri Gagarin
    Yuri Gagarin
    Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....

     reached a height of 327 km above Earth and was the first man to orbit earth.

  • 1961 - US, a Mercury
    Mercury program
    Mercury Program might refer to:*the first successful American manned spaceflight program, Project Mercury*an American post-rock band, The Mercury Program...

     capsule named Freedom 7 with Alan B. Shepard
    Alan Shepard
    Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. was an American naval aviator, test pilot, flag officer, and NASA astronaut who in 1961 became the second person, and the first American, in space. This Mercury flight was designed to enter space, but not to achieve orbit...

    , spacecraft was launched by a Redstone rocket
    Redstone (rocket)
    The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. A short-range surface-to-surface rocket, it was in active service with the U.S. Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO's Cold War defense of Western Europe...

     on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight.

  • 1962 - The US launches Mercury MA-6 (Friendship 7) on an Atlas D
    Atlas (rocket family)
    Atlas is a family of U.S. space launch vehicles. The original Atlas missile was designed in the late 1950s and produced by the Convair Division of General Dynamics, to be used as an intercontinental ballistic missile...

     booster, John Glenn
    John Glenn
    John Herschel Glenn, Jr. is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. Glenn was a Marine Corps fighter pilot before joining NASA's Mercury program as a member of NASA's original...

     finally puts America in orbit.

  • 1963 - The USSR launches Vostok 6
    Vostok 6
    -Backup crew:-Reserve crew:Vostok VI-Mission parameters:*Mass: *Apogee: *Perigee: *Inclination: 64.9°*Period: 87.8 minutes9090...

    , Valentina Tereshkova
    Valentina Tereshkova
    Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, and was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than four hundred applicants, and then out of five finalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in...

     was the first woman (and first civilian) to orbit earth. She remained in space for nearly three days and orbited the earth 48 times.

  • 1963 - US X-15 rocket-plane, the first reusable manned spacecraft (suborbital) reaches space, pioneering reusability, carried launch and glide landings.

  • 1965 - USSR Proton rocket, highly successful launch vehicle with notable payloads, Salyut 6 & Salyut 7, Mir & ISS components

  • 1965 - Robert Salked investigates various single stage to orbit spaceplane concepts

  • 1966 - USSR Luna 9
    Luna 9
    Luna 9 was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna program. On February 3, 1966 the Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on any planetary body other than Earth and to transmit photographic data to Earth.The automatic lunar station that achieved the...

    , the first soft landing on the Moon
    Moon
    The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...


  • 1966 - USSR launches Soyuz
    Soyuz spacecraft
    Soyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...

     spacecraft, longest-running series of spacecraft, eventually serving Soviet, Russian and International space missions.

  • 1969 - US Apollo 11
    Apollo 11
    In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

    , first men on the Moon, first lunar surface extravehicular activity.

  • 1981 - US space shuttle
    Space Shuttle
    The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...

     pioneers reusability and glide landings

  • 1998 - US Deep Space 1
    Deep Space 1
    Deep Space 1 is a spacecraft of the NASA New Millennium Program dedicated to testing a payload of advanced, high risk technologies....

     is first deep space mission to use an ion thruster
    Ion thruster
    An ion thruster is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion that creates thrust by accelerating ions. Ion thrusters are categorized by how they accelerate the ions, using either electrostatic or electromagnetic force. Electrostatic ion thrusters use the Coulomb force and...

     for propulsion

  • 1998 - Russia launch Zarya
    Zarya
    Zarya , also known as the Functional Cargo Block or FGB , was the first module of the International Space Station to be launched. The FGB provided electrical power, storage, propulsion, and guidance to the ISS during the initial stage of assembly...

     module which is the first part of International Space Station
    International Space Station
    The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...


21st century

  • 2001 - Russian Soyuz
    Soyuz spacecraft
    Soyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...

     spacecraft sent the first space tourist Dennis Tito
    Dennis Tito
    Dennis Anthony Tito is an Italian American engineer and multimillionaire, most widely known as the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space. In mid-2001, he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station...

     to International Space Station
    International Space Station
    The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...


  • 2004 - US-based, first privately developed, manned (suborbital) spaceflight, SpaceShipOne demonstrates reusability

  • 2010 - SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched
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