Titan I takes its first flight
On this day · 6 February 1959
On a winter morning at Cape Canaveral, America's mightiest two-stage missile lifted off—carrying nothing but water where its warhead would go.
On February 6, 1959, the U.S. Air Force launched the first Titan I from Cape Canaveral, Florida—an early milestone in America’s intercontinental ballistic missile program. For this maiden flight only the first stage did real work; the second stage rode along as a water-ballasted dummy, a cautious way to prove the airframe before trusting it with the rest.
The Titan was conceived as a heavier, longer-legged successor to the Atlas, eventually credited with a range of several thousand miles and a thermonuclear warhead. Unlike the thin-skinned Atlas, it used a rigid airframe and a genuine two-stage design, pointing the way toward the missiles that would sit in hardened silos through the Cold War.
The first American ICBM to fly that day carried only water where its warhead would later go.
The blurb’s Atlas claim is a common mix-up: Atlas first flew its full ocean-spanning range in November 1958. February 6 belongs to Titan.
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