Model of the month Mai 2025
Ad Astra: From A4 to Sputnik
From the original to the model
An independent part of the collections of the Hanover-Laatzen Aviation Museum are the more than 1,000 scale models, primarily of the international standards 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32.
Such true-to-original miniatures enable visitors to the museum's history of technology to gain an ‘overview’ of the development of aircraft and missile construction by means of sequencing and comparison. Sometimes they complement the presentation of the originals. The quality of their craftsmanship alone is a pleasure to behold.
Today, in our ‘Model of the Month’ series, we present the beginnings of long-range rocket and space flight: From the German Aggregat 4 of 1942 to the Soviet Russian Sputnik launch vehicle of 1957, derived with minor modifications from the first operational R 7 intercontinental ballistic missile.
The models
In the model showcases in Hall 2, you will also find two miniatures of the world's first long-range rocket, the A4, among various self-propelled and non-self-propelled missiles developed by the leading German aviation industry of that time, some of which were in service.
We also present a model kit of the world's first operational space launch vehicle, the Soviet R 7, which launched the first satellite ‘Sputnik’ into orbit in 1957, built from the collection of the Aviation Museum. In 1/144 scale, the Moscow manufacturer APEX edited this kit in the late 1980s in a series on Soviet space travel, including the R 7 in various configurations.
In 1/144 the R 7 of the Sputnik mission is a app. 21 cm long - in the original it was an impressive 30 metres. Model kits of Soviet/Russian spacecraft are still rather rare in our hemisphere and, measured against their global significance, are definitely underrepresented among Western European and American manufacturers.
The originals
Such is man. No sooner had he fulfilled his age-old dream of flying than he wanted to go on to the stars - Ad Astra, as the Latin says.
Following the intellectual and scientific groundwork of the Russian engineer and mastermind Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (‘Exploration of Space by Means of Reaction Apparatus’, 1903) and the German scientists Hermann Oberth (‘Wege zur Raumschiffahrt’, 1929) and Eugen Sänger (‘Raketenflugtechnik’, 1933), the first practical step in this direction was taken on 3 October 1942 from Peenemünde, Germany, with the successful flight of the A4 long-range rocket developed by Wernher von Braun and his team. A whole series of launches with records, but also failures, followed.
Touching space
Never before had a man-made, self-propelled object flown so fast (5,600 km/h) and so high (apogee 170 km); the acceleration and climb rate of the single-stage liquid rocket, 14.30 m long and weight of 13.3 tonnes, surpassed all previous expectations. It was the first missile to penetrate space, the limit of which is set at 100 km above sea level. However, these technical superlatives initially remained largely secret.
The Army Ordnance Office had provided the means and facilities for the development of a practical application; after all, they were (in the middle of the war) constantly looking for new weapons. This is how the ‘Aggregat 4’ became the ‘Vergeltungswaffe2’, of which 5,500 were produced and fitted with a one-tonne warhead and used against Western European cities and logistics centres. And this ‘V2’, known by the operating crews only as ‘the device’, remained the only weapon of the Second World War against which there was no defence - with a warning time of just a few seconds for London, for example. However, the conventional armament had no strategic effect, only a tactical and primarily psychological one. As in the Allied bombing war, it was primarily the civilian population that suffered. However, the mass forced labour of political prisoners and forced labourers in the production of the V2 remains shameful.
Technology transfer
After the German defeat in 1945, the entire rocket technology (including scientific personnel) was confiscated by the victors, taken away and analysed - and used as the basis for their own aerospace projects.
And as in Germany, research and military intentions went hand in hand for the Western Allies and the USSR, while both sides built their rocket arsenals on V2 technology and developed aerospace perspectives.
To the surprise of the West, the Soviet Union proved to be the leader on the path into space and remained so until the American moon landing in 1969. In addition to a pronounced technical ability there (which the West was long reluctant to recognise), a totalitarian regime, as previously in Germany, promoted the concentration of forces. The head of the Soviet rocket programme was Sergei P. Korolyov, a student of Tsiolkovsky; while Wernher von Braun, naturalised by the USA, became head of NASA and ‘father’ of the greatest space success to date, the manned moon landing.
The successful test flight of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile R 7 in the Soviet Union in August 1957 was followed on 4 October of the same year by the launch of a slightly modified version of the two-stage liquid carrier rocket as ‘8K71PS’ with the first satellite of mankind, the now proverbial ‘Sputnik’, or ‘Trabant’.
And this technical pioneering feat was also a showcase for the Soviet military - the colour scheme of this first space launcher also suggests that it was the same as the R7,that it was taken from the series production of nuclear weapon carriers that began with the R 7. Later examples of the space programme were painted in a neutral colour.
The ‘Sputnik’ satellite itself was a metal sphere 58 cm in diameter and weighing 83.6 kg with measuring and radio technology. Transported into space under the tip of the central unit and placed in orbit there, it transmitted radio signals on two frequencies for localisation and orbit tracking for three weeks as it orbited the earth at an average altitude of 577 km.
The West was in ‘Sputnik shock’ - and remained so long after the satellite, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, had burnt up on its descent into the Earth's atmosphere after 92 days as planned.
After two more successful Sputnik missions, on 12 April 1961 Major Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit our planet in 108 minutes in his ‘Vostok 1’ space capsule, which was now carried into space by a three-stage R 7 - mankind had arrived in space...
Data sheet long-range rocket A4:
Length: 14.30 m; max. diameter: 1.65 m (without tail fins); take-off weight: 13.3 tonnes; fuel: alcohol and liquid oxygen; maximum speed: 5,600 km/h (Mach 4.5). Payload: 1 tonne.
Data sheet launcher R 7 Sputnik mission:
Length: 29.16 m; max. diameter: 10.30 m (with outer blocks); launch weight: 267 t; fuel: paraffin and oxygen; maximum speed: up to 24,500 km/h (Mach 20). Payload: 1.4 tonnes.
Welcome!
Have we managed to arouse your curiosity about our collections of over 40 original and faithful replicas of gliders, light aircraft, commercial and military aircraft, just as many engines and hundreds of items of equipment as well as our model collection? Then we look forward to your visit to Ulmer Straße at the Hanover Exhibition Centre: See you there!
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You can contact the author of the Model of the Month series here: Autor-MdM