OTD In Space – February 21: Germany's 1st Liquid-Fuel Rocket (Barely) Launches

On February 21, 1931, Germany launched its first liquid-fueled rocket … sort of.

The rocket only made it about ten feet off the ground. To be fair, the rocket itself was only two feet tall, so it did achieve an altitude of about five times its height. The rocket was named Hückel-Winkler 1 after the engineers who designed and built it. It was powered by a combination of liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Hückel-Winkler 1 lifted off from a drilling field near Dessau, Germany on two separate flights. After the first launch was a failure, the rocket did reach its planned altitude of 500 feet during its second flight three weeks later.