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Heinz-Hermann Koelle
Summary
Heinz-Hermann Koelle (22 July 1925, in Danzig, Free City of Danzig – 20 February 2011, in Berlin, Germany) was a German aeronautical engineer who made the preliminary designs on the rocket that would emerge as the Saturn I. Closely associated with Wernher von Braun's team at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), he was a member of the launch crew on Explorer 1 and later directed the Marshall Space Flight Center's involvement in Project Apollo. In 1965, he accepted the Chair of Space Technology at the Technical University of Berlin.
Koelle was born in 1925 in the Free City of Danzig, son of a lieutenant-colonel in the police. After Germany annexed Danzig in 1939, Koelle joined the Luftwaffe and served as a pilot during the war. During his time in a prisoner of war camp after the war, Koelle turned his back on military matters and turned to the field of civilian spaceflight.
In 1948 he re-formed the pre-war German Society for Space Travel, which brought him into contact with von Braun and many others of the former Peenemünde team. In 1951 he and another ex-pilot helped von Braun publish his book Mars Project in Germany, arranging a publisher to take it on.
He started studying mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart, and led the Astronautical Research Institute between 1952 and 1954, when he received his Dipl.-Ing. On his graduation, von Braun invited him to join the ABMA team at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
Koelle arrived in the U.S. in April 1955, three months before President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that country's intent to launch a satellite during the International Geophysical Year in 1957. He took charge of Preliminary Design Section of the Structures and Mechanics Laboratory. The section had the task of carrying out "blue-sky" studies into conversions and modifications of various missiles for use as space launchers. Over time the section grew from 4 to 70 people as their studies on what was then known as "Super-Jupiter" evolved into the "Juno V" and finally into the Saturn I.
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