FROM THE CHIEF HISTORIAN BORIS CHERTOK'S Rockets and ...

nasa history division
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Obituaries (continued)
Dannenberg was closely involved in the conversion of the Redstone into the Jupiter-C
three-stage reentry test vehicle that itself would evolve into the four-stage Juno I
launch vehicle. On 30 September 1956, a Jupiter-C hurled a payload 3,400 miles
down range from Cape Canaveral attaining a maximum altitude of 682 miles; on
31 January 1958, a Juno I orbited Explorer 1, America’s frst artifcial satellite.
Dannenberg’s thoughts must have gone back to those Max Valier and Fritz von Opel
trials, marveling at the vital role he was playing 30 years later.
To coordinate America’s blossoming space program, the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration was created in 1958. By mid-1960, the new agency had
acquired von Braun’s Army Ballistic Missile Agency rocket team at Redstone
Arsenal. On dedication day, 1 July 1960, the team offcially became the nucleus of a
brand new NASA facility, the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, dedicated
by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the presence of Mrs. Marshall. The team’s
military-missile responsibilities had passed on to the hands of others. Suddenly, the
path lay open to the Moon and beyond.
Konrad Dannenberg, ready for the change and eagerly plunging into the development
of the Saturn series of launch vehicles, soon rose to the position of Deputy
Manager. What became known as Saturn I evolved from studies of a Juno V booster
that had been conducted at ABMA before its transfer to NASA. That design led
to the development of the Saturn I launch vehicle, 10 of which were fown between
October 1961 and July 1965 chalking up a 100 percent success record.
The larger Saturn IB followed, and, between 1966 and 1968, four were tasked to
check out the unpiloted Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM), including
reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, and to monitor Apollo Lunar Module performance
as well. Saturn IB launchers were also called upon to test the performance
in Earth orbit of the piloted Apollo 7 CSM combination. During 1973 and 1974,
the Saturn IBs transported three separate crews up to the Skylab space station;
in 1975, the last one fown participated in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, a U.S./
Soviet joint program focused on rendezvous in Earth orbit. All nine Saturn IB
fights were successful.
Konrad Dannenberg’s most daunting challenge was the development and launching
of giant Saturn V rockets; his decadesong experience was soon to be put to the
ultimate test. In 1968, 40 years after the Valier/von Opel rocket demonstrations in
Germany, two Saturn Vs were fown. The frst placed the uncrewed Apollo 6 into
orbit around Earth where a series of tests were conducted before the Command
Module successfully reentered the atmosphere. Then, on 21 December, another
Saturn V sent Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman; James A. Lovell, Jr.; and William
A. Anders along a circumlunar trajectory. Dannenberg was ecstatic and later
declared it was the second most emotional fight witnessed during his career—right
behind the frst successful A4 fown 26 years earlier. As in the case of the Saturn I
and IB rockets, all 13 Saturn V fights were successful, making a grand total of 32
launch vehicles in the Saturn series that were fown. Three fully restored Saturn Vs
still exist and are on display at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida;
at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and at Johnson Space
Center in Houston, Texas.
In 1973, having received NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the
Saturn program, Konrad Dannenberg retired—at least from NASA. For fve years,