The Redstone family of rockets consisted of a number of American ballistic missile

Ballistic missile

A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...

s, sounding rocket

Sounding rocket

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...

s and expendable launch vehicles

Expendable launch system

An expendable launch system is a launch system that uses an expendable launch vehicle to carry a payload into space. The vehicles used in expendable launch systems are designed to be used only once , and their components are not recovered for re-use after launch...

 operational during the 1950s and 60s. The first member of the family was the PGM-11 Redstone missile, from which all other members were derived. The first large U.S. rocket, modified Redstones launched America's first Earth satellite and first two astronauts.

PGM-11 Redstone

First launched in 1953, the PGM-11 Redstone was a short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile in active service with the U.S. Army from June 1958 to June 1964; and was used for the first U.S. live nuclear missile tests. It was built by Chrysler

Chrysler

Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

 for the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Army Ballistic Missile Agency

Army Ballistic Missile Agency

The Army Ballistic Missile Agency was the agency formed to develop the US Army's first intermediate range ballistic missile. It was established at Redstone Arsenal on February 1, 1956 and commanded by Major General John B...

 (ABMA) and was deployed in West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

.

Jupiter-A

Jupiter-A was the first variant of Redstone, used to test components later used in the PGM-19 Jupiter medium-range ballistic missile.

Jupiter-C

Jupiter-C

Jupiter-C

The Jupiter-C was an American sounding rocket used for three sub-orbital spaceflights in 1956 and 1957 to test re-entry nosecones that were later to be deployed on the more advanced PGM-19 Jupiter mobile missile....

 was a sounding rocket

Sounding rocket

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...

 used for three sub-orbital spaceflight

Sub-orbital spaceflight

A sub-orbital space flight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it does not complete one orbital revolution....

s in 1956 and 1957. It was used as a testbed for re-entry vehicles later deployed on the PGM-19 Jupiter.

Juno I

Juno I

Juno I

The Juno I was a four-stage American booster rocket which launched America's first satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958. A member of the Redstone rocket family, it was derived from the Jupiter-C sounding rocket...

 was a derivative of the Jupiter-C, used to launch the first American satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958. Although the U.S. possibly could have put a satellite into orbit before the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 had the ABMA been allowed to attempt a satellite launch in August 1956, the Eisenhower administration wanted the first U.S. satellite to be launched by a civilian-developed rocket instead of a military missile derivative.

The Vanguard rocket

Vanguard rocket

The Vanguard rocket was intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a Juno...

 was being developed for this purpose, so the administration ordered ABMA's research director, Wernher von Braun

Wernher von Braun

Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...

, not to attempt any satellite launches. The Vanguard rocket failed on the first attempt to launch the Vanguard satellite

Vanguard TV3

Vanguard TV3 was the first attempt of the United States to launch a satellite into orbit around the Earth. It was a small satellite designed to test the launch capabilities of the three-stage Vanguard rocket and study the effects of the environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit...

 in December 1957, crashing back to the pad and exploding. The administration then turned to the Army, and the ABMA and von Braun were asked to launch a backup satellite as soon as possible.

Mercury-Redstone

The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA's Project Mercury, was the first American manned space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–61; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks later, the second American in space.A member of the...

 (MRLV), also known as Mercury-Redstone, used the stretched Redstone configuration from the Jupiter-C for six suborbital launches for Project Mercury

Project Mercury

In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...

 in 1960 and 61, including America's first two manned spaceflights:

• Mercury-Redstone 1
  Mercury-Redstone 1
  Mercury-Redstone 1 was the first Mercury-Redstone mission in the Mercury program and the first attempt to launch a Mercury spacecraft with the Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle. Intended to be an unmanned sub-orbital flight, it was launched on November 21, 1960 from Cape Canaveral, Florida...
  
  , abort, launched 4 in (100 mm)
• Mercury-Redstone 1A
  Mercury-Redstone 1A
  Mercury-Redstone 1A was launched on December 19, 1960 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission objectives of this unmanned suborbital flight were to qualify the spacecraft for space flight and qualify the system for an upcoming primate suborbital flight. The spacecraft tested its...
  
  , successful unmanned flight
• Mercury-Redstone 2
  Mercury-Redstone 2
  Mercury-Redstone 2 was an American space mission, launched at 16:55 UTC on January 31, 1961 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Mercury spacecraft No...
  
  , carried Ham the chimpanzee
  Ham the Chimp
  Ham , also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, was the first chimpanzee launched into outer space in the American space program...
  
  
• Mercury-Redstone BD
  Mercury-Redstone BD
  Mercury-Redstone BD was an unmanned booster development flight in the U.S. Mercury program. It was launched on March 24, 1961 from Launch Complex 5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida...
  
  , booster development - final test before manned flight
• Mercury-Redstone 3
  Mercury-Redstone 3
  Mercury-Redstone 3 was the first manned space mission of the United States. Astronaut Alan Shepard piloted a 15-minute Project Mercury suborbital flight in the Freedom 7 spacecraft on May 5, 1961 to become the first American in space, three weeks after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had carried...
  
  , (Freedom 7), first American in space, Alan Shepard
  Alan Shepard
  Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. was an American naval aviator, test pilot, flag officer, and NASA astronaut who in 1961 became the second person, and the first American, in space. This Mercury flight was designed to enter space, but not to achieve orbit...
  
  
• Mercury-Redstone 4
  Mercury-Redstone 4
  Mercury-Redstone 4 was the second United States manned space mission, launched on July 21, 1961. The Mercury program suborbital flight used a Redstone rocket. The spacecraft was named Liberty Bell 7 piloted by astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom. It reached an altitude of more than 118.26 mi ...
  
  , (Liberty Bell 7), second American in space, Gus Grissom
  Gus Grissom
  Virgil Ivan Grissom , , better known as Gus Grissom, was one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and a United States Air Force pilot...
  
  

Saturn

Two members of the Saturn

Saturn (rocket family)

The Saturn family of American rocket boosters was developed by a team of mostly German rocket scientists led by Wernher von Braun to launch heavy payloads to Earth orbit and beyond. Originally proposed as a military satellite launcher, they were adopted as the launch vehicles for the Apollo moon...

 family of rockets, the Saturn I

Saturn I

The Saturn I was the United States' first heavy-lift dedicated space launcher, a rocket designed specifically to launch large payloads into low Earth orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a clustered lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make...

 and IB

Saturn IB

The Saturn IB was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for use in the Apollo program...

, were derived from the Redstone. They used Redstone and Jupiter

Jupiter (missile)

The PGM-19 Jupiter was the first medium-range ballistic missile of the United States Air Force . It was a liquid-fueled rocket using RP-1 fuel and LOX oxidizer, with a single Rocketdyne LR70-NA rocket engine producing 667 kN of thrust...

 propellant tanks clustered together with eight Jupiter engines to form the first stage of the rockets. First developed by the ABMA, the Saturn rocket was adopted by NASA for its Apollo program. America's first heavy-lift launch vehicles, the first of these

SA-1 (Apollo)

SA-1 was the first Saturn I space launch vehicle, the first in the Saturn family, and was part of the American Apollo program. The rocket was launched on October 27, 1961 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.-Objectives:...

 was launched in 1961.

Sparta

Sparta

Sparta (rocket)

The Sparta was a three-stage rocket that launched Australia's first Earth satellite, WRESAT, on 29 November 1967.Sparta used a surplus American Redstone as its first stage, an Antares as a second stage, and a BE-3 as a third stage...

 was the name given to a series of surplus Redstone missiles with two solid-fuel upper stages launched as part of a joint US-UK research project with Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

from 1966–67. Sparta launched Australia's first Earth satellite.