Historical context

The A4 rocket is also known as the V-2 rocket (Vergeltungswaffe 2). It was a long-range ballistic missile developed by Germany during the Second World War. The A4/V-2 was the world’s first guided long-range ballistic missile and was primarily designed as a weapon for attacking targets in Allied territories.

The A4 missile was developed by a team led by German engineer Wernher von Braun and was launched vertically using a combination of liquid oxygen and ethanol as propellant. It had a range of around 320 kilometres (200 miles) and could reach a speed of up to 5,760 kilometres per hour (3,580 miles per hour).

The A4 missile had a warhead payload of around 1,000 kilograms and was mainly used to attack cities such as London and Antwerp in the final stages of the war. The missile’s guidance system was rudimentary compared to modern technology and relied on an inertial navigation system and a gyroscopic guidance system.

Although the A4 rocket was an impressive technological achievement in its day, its operational impact was limited to the end of the Second World War. The production and deployment of the rocket encountered numerous problems, including manufacturing difficulties and the destruction of production facilities by Allied bombing raids.

After the war, many of the German scientists who had worked on the A4 rocket, including Wernher von Braun, were recruited by the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. Their knowledge and experience formed the basis for the American space programme, and the development of the A4/V-2 rocket played an important role in the later development of rocket technology.