Redstone Trainer Missile Firing Exercise

Battery A 1st Missile Battalion 333rd Artillery

40th Artillery Group (Redstone)

Kuhberg Hill, Bad Kreuznach, Germany

August 1961


Attaching Thrust Unit to Body Unit
Showing tasks at the completion of mating the thrust unit and the body unit.
Note the block and cable rigging suspended from the head of the A-frame, used to support the thrust unit.
The A-frame was employed as a "crane" for mating the three missile sections.

The man on the top of the missile is installing and torquing the last of six explosive bolts
that were employed to join the thrust unit and body together.

A few seconds after the pre-determined engine cutoff, the bolts were exploded to separate the body from the thrust unit.
Two air-loaded cylindrical pistons located on the thrust unit then pushed the two units apart.


Commencing Horizontal Checkout
The hatch for the aft unit instrument compartment that housed the ST-80 Stabilized Platform
is secured in its open position, and the compartment is being prepared for ST-80 installation.