Jupiter

The Jupiter Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile was in service from 1960 to 1963 as an important link between early short-range rockets and later weapons that could reach any point on Earth. Its development began in 1956 as a joint U.S. Army and U.S. Navy project, originally intended for shipboard use and shaped as a compromise between Army and Navy designs. In 1956, the Department of Defense assigned the U.S. Air Force responsibility for building and operating all missiles with ranges greater than 200 miles, and Jupiter immediately became a U.S. Air Force program. It was a single-stage liquid-fueled missile with an internal guidance system and the first mobile strategic ballistic missile to use an ablative heat shield on its nosecone, a technology later used on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft. Modified versions of Jupiter also served as first-stage boosters for early U.S. satellite launches, and the missile became especially known as a bargaining chip in the resolution of the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis.

New Mexico · United States