Konrad Dannenberg autographed 8 × 10-inch black-and-white photograph depicting a V-2 rocket positioned on its launch gantry at White Sands Proving Ground. The image captures early postwar U.S. Army rocket testing that laid the foundation for American spaceflight and launch vehicle development. Dannenberg has added a lengthy handwritten inscription along the right margin, identifying the rocket as a V-2 and noting its historical context, and has signed and dated the photograph May 16, 1983.
Konrad Dannenberg (1912–2009) was a German-American rocket engineer and a central figure in the development of large liquid-fuelled rocket engines in the United States. As part of Wernher von Braun’s team, Dannenberg worked on V-2 rocket testing at White Sands before becoming a key propulsion engineer on the Saturn I and Saturn V programs at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. His autographed photographs are highly sought after for their direct connection to both early V-2 experimentation and the engineering breakthroughs that enabled the Apollo Moon landings.