Loki (rocket) - Development

Development

Taifun was powered by a hypergolic mixture pressure-fed into the combustion chamber. The pressure was provided by small cordite charges that were fired into the fuel tanks, in the process bursting a pair of thin diaphragms to allow the fuel and oxidizer to flow into the combustion chamber. The Germans were never able to get the engine to work reliably, and the rocket was never deployed operationally.

American efforts to further develop the system started at Bendix in 1948, after the US Army had initially studied the Taifun in 1946. One major change was to replace the warhead area with a dart-like version, which was separated from the main rocket body at engine burnout to continue on without the drag of the airframe and thereby reach higher altitudes. Like the Germans before them, Bendix had significant problems with the engine, and eventually decided to develop a solid-fuel engine based on a new elastomeric fuel from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), starting in March 1951. The new engine was successful, and the liquid engine was abandoned in February 1952.

The first flight of a solid-fuel Loki occurred in June 1951.

An initial meeting on Jun 25 1954 at the Redstone Arsenal of Dr. Wernher von Braun, Frederick C. Durant III, Alexander Satin, David Young, Dr. Fred L. Whipple, Dr. S. Fred Singer, and Commander George W. Hoover resulted in an agreement that a Redstone rocket with a Loki cluster as the second stage could launch a satellite into a 200-mile orbit without major new developments.

JPL eventually fired 3,544 at White Sands during the testing program, where it was discovered that the launch of one rocket would affect the flight path of the ones behind it, making the dispersion too large to be a useful weapon. Although this problem was studied in depth, it appeared there was no obvious solution. The Army eventually gave up on Loki in September 1955, in favour of the Nike-Ajax missile, which had recently reached operational status.