FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

290 SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT
FIGURE 4.—Rockets 07 (left) and 09.
FIGURE 5.—Test stand for Rocket 09 engine tests.
FIGURE 6.—Loading a Rocket 09 with liquid oxygen.
FIGURE 7.—Launch of Rocket 09.
and the chamber walls. An aircraft spark plug
screwed into the combustion chamber served as the
igniter. The body of the 09 rocket, constructed of
0.5-mm-thick aluminum, contained the engine and
the tanks. The fins were made of Electron, a magnesium
alloy. The fully equipped rocket weighed 19
kg. Photos of it were repeatedly printed in technical
and scientific publications (see Figure 4). 3
The engine for the 09 rocket was developed
during the spring and summer of 1933. The thrust,
measured on a balancing beam test stand (Figure 5)
averaged 37 kg. The first launching of the 09 rocket
took place on 17 August 1933 and was a success.
The rocket was launched vertically and reached an
altitude of about 400 m. It is shown being loaded
with liquid oxygen in Figure 6 and in flight in
Figure 7. This was the first flight of a Soviet liquidpropellant
rocket.
The 09 rocket was launched for the second time
late in the fall of 1933. This time its thrust chamber
exploded in the air, for an undetermined reason,
when the rocket reached an altitude of about 100 m.
RNII later made a series of six 09 rockets, designated
series "13," which were successfully launched
at various angles of elevation to investigate the