Hans Joachim Oskar Fichtner (September 8, 1917 – October 21, 2012) was a rocket scientist who worked on

V-2 The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develope ...

rockets for

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, en, " Peene iverMouth") is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is part of the ''Amt'' (collective municipality) of Usedom-Nord. The commu ...

from 1939 to 1945. He was among the scientists to surrender and travel to the United States to provide rocketry expertise via

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...

which took them first to

Fort Bliss Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Named in honor of LTC William Bliss (1815–1853), a mathematics professor who was the son-in-law of President Zachary Taylor, Ft. Bliss h ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

(1945–1949). He continued his work with the team when they moved to Redstone Arsenal, and he joined Marshall Space Flight Center to work for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

. In a personal letter to a space aficionado, Fichtner wrote, "I worked at Peenemünde to design the control system of the A4. Later I laid out the electrical system for the

ground and airborne. Arrived at the States with the 55 specialists Nov 17, 45, designed the electrical system for all White Sands V-2 launches in the first 1 years. Did all the electrical systems design for Redstone, Mercury-Redstone,

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

Pershing missile The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile as ...

. Was totally responsible for the entire ground and airborne electrical systems for the

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

100, 200 series, all

Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 196 ...

firings and Skylab after Apollo project. Was Chief engineer for the satellite series high energy astronomy observatory (HEAO). Worked as a consultant for the layout of the

Spacelab Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...

. Electrical system with

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

in the Netherlands 1975/76. Introduced the automated, computerized checkout and firing sequence during the Saturn/Apollo program".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fichtner, Hans German aerospace engineers German rocket scientists German spaceflight pioneers Peenemünde Army Research Center and Airfield 1917 births 2012 deaths Operation Paperclip German emigrants to the United States 20th-century American engineers Engineers from Leipzig