CC BY-SA 3.0 ↗
Polaris A1 Missile
- Year
- 1956
- Creator
- Lockheed Missile Systems Division, U.S. Navy
- Company
- Lockheed
- Location
- Sunnyvale, California
- Room
- Cold War Money ↗
Description
The Polaris A1 was a solid-fuel ballistic missile that a submerged submarine could launch, and Lockheed was the prime contractor. The photograph shows a Polaris A1 and a later Polaris A3 at a museum in Honolulu.
Importance
Lockheed moved its missile division to Sunnyvale in 1956, next to Moffett Field. By the early 1960s, Polaris and secret satellite programs made the Sunnyvale division one of the largest employers in the Valley. The former Joshua Hendy plant in Sunnyvale, then a part of Westinghouse, made launch equipment for the missile.
Interesting fact
On September 24, 1958, the first Polaris test missile did not turn onto its correct path because of a programming error, and it exploded.
Sources
- George Washington III (SSBN-598) ↗Naval History and Heritage Command, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
- Where science takes flight: Lockheed marks 50 years in Sunnyvale ↗San Francisco Chronicle (David R. Baker) · 2006-09-15
- Polaris A-1 ↗Federation of American Scientists
- Polaris A1 (AX-1) launch, pad LC-25A, 1958-09-24 (USN 710352 caption) ↗U.S. Navy via Wikimedia Commons · 1958-09-24
- The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part 15: Agena, the Secret Space Truck, Ferrets and Stanford ↗Steve Blank · 2010-03-08
- UGM-27 Polaris ↗Wikipedia
- Polaris family (launch list) ↗Gunter's Space Page