The Atlas-Able was an American

expendable launch system An expendable launch system (or expendable launch vehicle/ELV) is a launch vehicle that can be launched only once, after which its components are either destroyed during reentry or discarded in space. ELVs typically consist of several rocket sta ...

derived from the

SM-65 Atlas The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dyna ...

missile. It was a member of the Atlas family of rockets, and was used to launch several

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and de ...

spacecraft towards the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. Of the five Atlas-Able rockets built, two failed during

static firing Launch vehicle system tests assess the readiness of a launch system to safely reach orbit. Launch vehicles undergo system tests before they launch. A wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and a more extensive static fire tests a fully assembled launch vehicl ...

s, and the other three failed to reach orbit.Encyclopedia Astronautica - Atlas
/ref> The Atlas-Able was a three-and-a-half-stage rocket, with a stage-and-a-half Atlas missile as the first stage, an Able second stage, and an

Altair Altair is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and the twelfth-brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation Alpha Aquilae, which is Latinised from α Aquilae and abbreviated Alpha Aql ...

third stage. The first Atlas-Able used an Atlas C as the first stage, but this exploded during a static fire test on 24 September 1959.Space Review, The Pioneer lunar orbiters: a forgotten failure, by Andrew J. LePage, Monday, December 13, 2010
/ref> The remaining launches used

Atlas D The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dy ...

missiles. Launches were conducted from Launch Complexes 12 and 14 at the

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

. One launch was planned from

Launch Complex 13 Launch Complex 13 (LC-13) was a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the third-most southerly of the original launch complexes known as Missile Row, lying between LC-12 and LC-14. In 2015, the LC-13 site was leased by SpaceX ...

; this became the second Atlas-Able to be destroyed during a static firing, and hence never launched.

Launches

References

Rockets and missiles Atlas (rocket family) {{rocket-stub