March 16, 1926: The First Liquid-Propellant Rocket Launch

Document Type

Photograph

Date

1971

Keywords

Ward Farm, Auburn, Massachusetts, Robert Goddard, rocketry, liquid-fuel rocket

Description

An aerial photograph of the former Ward Farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, site of the Robert Goddard's rocket experiments up until July of 1929. This photograph is estimated to have been taken in the late 1960s or early 1970s, long after the Ward family had it converted to the Pakachoag Golf Course in 1939. Towards the middle and to the left of the snow-covered golf course is a small cluster of trees, and this is where Goddard conducted his experiment on March 16, 1926, marking the world's first launch of a liquid-fuel rocket. The cluster of trees appear because the site is a National Historic Landmark, and is memorialized with a stone monument, located at the midpoint between the tee and the green on the ninth fairway.

In his book Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age, David Clary describes that assistant Henry Sachs "lit a blowtorch attached to a long stick, and touched off the igniter, improvised from match heads, at the top of the motor. Then he lit the alcohol tank under the LOX tank, and stepped behind a propped-up wooden door for shelter. Goddard turned a valve, which let pressurized oxygen from a tank enter the fuel system, donating a boost to the vapor pressure rising from the LOX tank, heated by the alcohol flame."

As Goddard next described it, "Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out and there was a steady roar. After a number of seconds it rose, slowly until it cleared the frame, and then at express-train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate. It looked almost magical as it rose, without any appreciably greater noise or flame, as if it said, 'I've been here long enough; I think I'll be going somewhere else if you don't mind'".

The delay in lift-off and very limited film length prevented Esther from capturing the flight with her new movie camera. That brief 16mm film footage can be seen here, as part of the Goddard Rocket Film Reels series. While the flight itself was not captured by photograph or video, Esther was able to record before the flight, assistant Henry Sachs igniting the rocket, and after the flight.

The delay was due to the rocket needing to burn off excess fuel before it could lift off.

The rocket's altitude was 41 feet at an average of 60 miles per hour; it was in the air for 2.5 seconds and landed 184 feet from the launching frame, traveling a total path of 220 feet.

Photographs were scanned at 400dpi.

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