Jupiter A Orbital launch vehicle test on March 15th, 1956

These are 1/72 scale decals for the Jupiter A launch vehicle as it appeared on 15 March 1956, during test flights conducted by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) at Cape Canaveral, Florida — a critical early milestone in the American ballistic missile and space launch program led by Dr. Wernher von Braun.

The Jupiter A was not a distinct rocket in its own right but rather a modified Redstone ballistic missile used as a test vehicle to evaluate components and technologies intended for the more advanced Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) then under development. By flying Jupiter A test vehicles, von Braun's ABMA team at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama could validate guidance systems, re-entry vehicle designs, and propulsion components under real flight conditions — accumulating the hard-won engineering data that would be essential for both the Jupiter IRBM and the later space launch vehicles derived from the Redstone family.

The 15 March 1956 launch took place during a period of intense competition and urgency in American rocketry, as the Army, Navy, and Air Force each pursued their own ballistic missile programs while the broader question of who would launch America's first satellite remained unresolved. The data gathered from Jupiter A flights like this one fed directly into the development of the Juno I launch vehicle that would carry Explorer 1 into orbit less than two years later — making the Jupiter A test program an essential, if little-celebrated, chapter in the story of American spaceflight.

A rare and technically significant subject from the earliest days of the American space and missile program. Please allow some time for decal printing and shipping.