General Dynamics Atlas & Centaur Medal for Employee's Dedicated Program Service

Description

General Dynamics Medal for Involved Employees Dedicated Service on the Atlas & Centaur
Material:
Bronze
Dimensions:
2
1/4th
inches diameter
x
3/16
th
thick
Number Struck:
all “involved employees” for Dedicated Service on the Atlas and Centaur programs
Condition: Very Good Circulated, see all attached pictures
General Dynamics Corporation (GD)
is an American
aerospace
and
defense
corporation. As of 2019, it was the fifth-largest
defense contractor
in the United States, and the sixth-largest in the world, by sales.
What was soon called "Convair" (first unofficially, and then officially), was created in 1943 by the merger of the
Consolidated Aircraft
Company and the
Vultee Aircraft
Company.
The
Atlas missile
, the
F-102 Delta Dagger
and
F-106 Delta Dart
delta-winged interceptors, and the delta-winged
B-58 Hustler
supersonic intercontinental nuclear bomber were all Convair products.
In March 1953, all of the Convair company was bought by the
General Dynamics Corporation
, a conglomerate of military and high-technology companies, and it became officially the Convair Division within General Dynamics.
The sale was approved by government oversight with the provision that GD would continue to operate out of
Air Force Plant 4
in
Fort Worth, Texas
. This factory had been set up in order to spread out strategic aircraft production and rented to Convair during the war to produce
B-24 Liberator
bombers.
Convair worked as an independent division under the General Dynamics umbrella. Over the next decade, the company introduced the
F-106 Delta Dart
Interceptor
, the
B-58 Hustler
, and the
Convair 880
and
990
airliners
. Convair also introduced the
Atlas missile
platform, the first operational
intercontinental ballistic missile
.
Convair's
Atlas rocket
was originally developed in 1957 as an
ICBM
for the
U.S. Air Force
. It was replaced in 1962 by the room-temperature liquid-fueled
Titan II missile
and the solid-fueled
Minuteman missile
. The Atlas rocket transitioned into a civilian launch vehicle and was used for the first orbital crewed U.S. space flights during
Project Mercury
in 1962 and 1963.
The
Atlas rocket
became a very reliable booster for launching of satellites and continued to evolve, remaining in use into the 21st century, when combined with the
Centaur
upper stage to form the
Atlas-Centaur
launch vehicle
for launching geosynchronous
communication satellites
and
space probes
.
The Centaur rocket was also designed, developed, and produced by Convair, and it was the first widely used outer space rocket to use the all-
cryogenic
fuel-oxidizer combination of
liquid hydrogen
and
liquid oxygen
.
More than 100 Convair-produced Atlas-Centaur rockets (including those with their successor designations) were used to successfully launch over 100 satellites, and among their many other outer-space missions, they launched the
Pioneer 10
and
Pioneer 11
space probes, the first two to be launched on trajectories that carried them out of the
Solar System
.
Atlas is a family of US missiles and space
launch vehicles
that originated with the
SM-65 Atlas
. The Atlas
intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) program was initiated in the late 1950s under the
Convair
Division of
General Dynamics
. Atlas was a
liquid propellant rocket
burning
RP-1
fuel with
liquid oxygen
in three engines configured in an unusual "stage-and-a-half" or "parallel staging" design: two outboard booster engines were jettisoned along with supporting structures during ascent, while the center sustainer engine, propellant tanks and other structural elements remained connected through propellant depletion and engine shutdown.
The Atlas name was originally proposed by
Karel Bossart
and his design team working at
Convair
on project MX-1593. Using the name of a
mighty titan from Greek mythology
reflected the missile's place as the biggest and most powerful at the time. It also reflected the parent company of Convair, the Atlas Corporation.
The missiles saw only brief ICBM service, and the last squadron was taken off operational alert in 1965. However, from 1962 to 1963
Atlas boosters
launched the first four US
astronauts
to
orbit
the Earth (in contrast to the preceding two
Redstone
suborbital
launches).
The
Atlas-Agena
and
Atlas-Centaur
satellite launch vehicles were also derived directly from the original Atlas. The Atlas-Centaur was evolved into the
Atlas II
, various models of which were launched 63 times between 1991 and 2004. There were only six launches of the succeeding
Atlas III
, all between 2000 and 2005. The
Atlas V
is still in service, with launches planned into the 2020s.
More than 300 Atlas launches have been conducted from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
in Florida and 285 from
Vandenberg Air Force Base
in California.
Centaur is a family of rocket propelled
upper stages
.
Centaur was the first rocket stage to use
liquid hydrogen
(LH2) and
liquid oxygen
(LOX)
propellants
, a high-energy combination that is ideal for upper stages but has significant handling difficulties.
The Centaur concept originated in 1956 when
Convair
began studying a liquid hydrogen fueled upper stage. The ensuing project began in 1958 as a joint venture among Convair, the
Advanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA), and the
U.S. Air Force
. In 1959,
NASA
assumed ARPA's role. Centaur initially flew as the upper stage of the
Atlas-Centaur
launch vehicle, encountering a number of early developmental issues due to the pioneering nature of the effort and the use of liquid hydrogen. In 1994
General Dynamics
sold their Space Systems division to
Lockheed-Martin
.