MGM-29 Sergeant

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MGM-29 Sergeant in flight

The MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range, solid fuel, surface-to-surface missile developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Activated by the US Army in 1962 to replace the MGM-5 Corporal it was deployed overseas by 1963, carrying the W52 nuclear warhead or alternatively one of high explosives. It was replaced by the MGM-52 Lance and the last US Army battalion was deactivated in 1977.

Operation of the Sergeant was recognised to be an interim stage in the development of battlefield missiles. It avoided the Corporal's liquid-fuel-handling drawbacks, but still requiring extensive setup and checkout before launch, together with a train of semi-trailer support vehicles.^[1] More advanced missiles, such as the contemporary Blue Water and later Lance, would reduce this (elongated) set-up time.

The Sergeant had a takeoff thrust of 200 kilonewtons (45,000 lb_f), a takeoff weight of 4,530 kilograms (10,000 lb), a diameter of 790 millimetres (31 in), a length of 10.52 metres (34.5 ft) and a fin span of 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in). The Sergeant missile had a minimum range of 25 miles (40 km), and a maximum range of 84 miles (135 km).

The Sergeant was used as the second stage of the Scout satellite launcher, and clusters of Sergeant-derived rockets were used in the second and third stages of the Jupiter-C sounding rocket and used in the second, third, and fourth stages of the Juno I and Juno II launch vehicles.

Thiokol developed the Sergeant rocket motors—and the Castor rocket stages derived from them—at the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama.^[2]