📊 Analysis

Statistics & insights on rockets and organizations — technology, history, numbers.

Rocket

Organization

Thor Able III

Retired

McDonnell Douglas

American orbital launch vehicle. Thor with Able stage derived from Vanguard second stage.

Total launches

Successes

Failures

Success rate

100.0 %

Success streak

Maiden flight

Aug 7, 1959

Reusable

Planned launches

Thor, Thor-Able family total

7 launches · 4 successes · 3 failures (4 variants)

Automatic plausibility checks — anomalies are surfaced transparently here:

ℹ️The figures above apply only to the “Thor Able III” variant. The Launch Library counts each variant separately — the Thor, Thor-Able family totals 7 launches across 4 variants.

Length

27.4 m

Diameter

2.44 m

Launch mass

52 t

Liftoff thrust

668 kN

Stages

of which in our database: 1

Successes Failures Other/planned