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In this photo, Louis Dunn, JPL Director from 1946 to 1954, is shown doing last minute adjustments on a Corporal missile at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. JPL successfully launched and flew this Corporal in May 1947, the first in over 100 rounds launched by JPL to develop a tactical guided missile for US Army Ordnance.

Dunn, previously a professor of Aeronautics at Caltech, was concerned enough over the success of this first round to travel overnight by train from Pasadena to El Paso and then by car to the White Sands facility. While Clark Millikan, the head of Caltech's Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory looked on, Dunn intently finished his work.