{"id":616511,"date":"2026-09-06T18:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T18:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616511\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T18:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T18:52:13","slug":"on-this-day-in-space-sept-6-1947-the-us-navy-launches-1st-v-2-rocket-at-sea-in-ballistic-missile-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616511\/","title":{"rendered":"On this day in space! Sept. 6, 1947: The US Navy launches 1st V-2 rocket at sea in ballistic missile test"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sept. 6, 1947, a rocket launched from an aircraft carrier for the first time. The V-2 rocket<\/a> was captured from a German manufacturing site by the Allied forces at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

V-2s were the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile<\/a>. They were designed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun<\/a>, a famous aerospace engineer, invented them for Nazi Germany before he was secretly moved to the U.S. and started working for NASA. Von Braun and the seized V-2 missile parts were brought to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the scientists assembled the parts and began experimenting with launches.<\/p>\n

The first V-2 to launch at sea blasted off from a U.S. Navy ship called the USS Midway in a mission titled “Operation Sandy.” The aircraft carrier sailed a few hundred miles south of Bermuda for the launch. After liftoff, the V-2 started tilting midair and only made it to an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) before falling back to Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"a\n<\/p>\n

A V-2 rocket ignites its engine on the deck of the USS Midway during the U.S. Navy’s first ballistic missile test on Sept. 6, 1947. (Image credit: USS Midway Museum)Why it mattered<\/p>\n

Rockets<\/a> may be great for space exploration, but the technology’s roots are firmly embedded in military applications, with the V-2 rocket standing out as a clear example.<\/p>\n

The rocket was designed as a military weapon<\/a> first and foremost, and it was U.S. military’s push to secure such tech that led to Operation: Paperclip, which secreted Von Braun and many other German aerospace scientists out of Germany at the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Operation: Sandy marked the first ballistic missile launch by the U.S. Navy, but today the such missiles are a standard part of the arsenal<\/a> of some ships. That all started with the 1947 test flight. It also marked a step forward in U.S. missile technology, which would later evolve into orbital rockets just over a decade later.<\/p>\n

While the V-2 rocket that launched from the USS Midway veered off course and began to break apart at an alttude of about 12,000 feet, according to MidwayCurrents.org<\/a>, it did prove the concept of a missile launch at sea.<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive<\/a> and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"NASA's<\/p>\n

\nOn this day in space! Sept. 5, 1977: NASA launches Voyager 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sept. 6, 1947, a rocket launched from an aircraft carrier for the first time. The V-2 rocket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-616511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}