Atlas Missile Album

Launch Complex 567-1, Deer Park Washington, August 18, 1961.  A dual propellant loading exercise.  Note that the launch bay's overhead blast door retracts to the west ... left in this picture.  Also note that a portion of the body of the missile appears to be painted white.  This is actually a thick, ice-like layer of condensation frost adhearing to that section of the rocket's body containing liquid oxygen.  The white plume being expelled just below the warhead-missile mating joint is atmospheric moisture being condensed into fog by the chilled oxygen boiling out of the LOX tank's pressure relief valve. 

A view of the Launch Control room.  The launch control console is in the center, with the codebooks and flowcharts on the desk.  The facility remote control panel is to the right.  Cabinets against the back wall contain the site's closed circuit televisions.  The upper left screen shows topside as seen through the 360 degree exterior view camera.  On the upper right, the personnel-entrapment area camera.  And at the lower right, the security view of the warhead in the missile bay.

This is a Mark IV ballistic re-entry vehicle mounted to the nose of one of Fairchild's coffin bunker housed Atlas E missiles.  Each of the 567th Strategic Missile Squadron's Mark IV vehicles contained a W-38 thermonuclear device capable of exploding with a force equivalent to 3.75 million tons of TNT.

All photos used on this page are courtesy of Spokane's Armed Forces & Aerospace Museum.  Please contact the Museum at 509-244-0244 regarding any other use of these photos.