MISSILE OFF COURSE

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 13

MISSILE OFF COURSE

Demolition After Launching (Rec. 11 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 29. The firing of a United States Army ballistic missile for the Secretary of Defence (Mr Charles Wilson) last Friday was not as successful as first reported, a United Press dispatch said tonight. The dispatch quoted Defence Department sources as saying the missile—the 1500-mile Jupiter—had to be demolished because it went off course.

Upon his return yesterday from the missile centre on Florida’s east coast, Mr Wilson said he had seen a successful missile launching, but he avoided specific identification of the weapon, saying that maybe he had “talked too much already." Defence officials confirmed that the missile was a Jupiter, that it had travelled 600 miles, that its launching and flight had been without mishap and that the weapon achieved a “satisfactory degree of accuracy.” But the United Press said this had been denied by "sources considered impartial.” These sources said that the Jupiter rose to an altitude of about 16 miles and began to tilt from the vertical towards the horizontal. If its rocket motor had simply been cut off, the missile might have splashed into the Atlantic some 35 to 40 miles from its launching point. That was why it was destroyed. The first Jupiter fired there reached an altitude of from five to 10 miles and blew up. One week before the launching of the Jupiter, an Air Force intermediate range ballistic missile, the Thor, came to an untimely end. The Thor had ascended several thousand feet after a successful launching and appeared to be functioning well. But a range safety officer, whose radarscope . showed that the missile was wandering off its appointed course, deliberately destroyed the missile by electronic means for fear the weapon might get out of hand and cause damage or loss of life.