SM-65 Atlas

The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. The Convair Division of General Dynamics built it for the U.S. Air Force at an assembly plant at Kearny Mesa in San Diego. Work began in 1946 as an Army Air Forces research contract, was cancelled and restarted several times, and became a crash project in late 1952. The first test launch took place on 11 June 1957 and the missile was declared operational in 1959. It was a stage-and-a-half rocket with thin stainless steel balloon tanks that needed internal pressure to keep their shape, which made it light but hard to debug. Newer solid-fuel designs rendered it obsolete and it left the missile role by 1965, but retired Atlas missiles and Atlas-derived rockets went on launching NASA payloads for decades. About 350 were built.