1941 January 1 - Launch Vehicle: RCA Dragon. -
 Aerial torpedo proposed. Nation: USA. RCA proposed to NDRC design and developoment of rocket-propelled, radio-controlled aerial torpedo with TV nose, which was given code name "Dragon." The National Bureau of Standards was assigned the task of developing a suitable airframe. References: 17.
1941 - Launch Vehicle: V-3. -
 The V-3 Hochdruckpumpe supergun conceived Nation: Germany. Coenders at Saar Roechling proposed the concept of sequentially electrically activated angled side chambers to provide additional acceleration of a shell during its passage up the barrel of the gun. This allowed a muzzle velocity of over 1500 m/s. A 140 m long cannon using this concept would be capable of delivering a 140 kg shell over a 165 km range. Funding is finally obtained to build a subscale prototype.
1941-1944 - Launch Site: Peenemuende. Launch Complex: -. Launch Pad: -. Launch Vehicle: V-2. - A4 engine improvements Nation: Germany. Throughout the early 1940's Thiel and his team sought to produce a single chamber 25 tonne thrust engine in place of the kludged prototype engine that used 18 separate 1.5 tf chambers. They managed to demonstrate a 60 second burn time in the 18-chamber design, but the engine itself was considered too complicated to fabricate in production, requiring thousands of hand-assembled tubes to introduce fuel and oxidiser into the chamber. Thiel sought to replace these thousands of tubes with a simpler injection system - rows of simple bored holes on a flat injector plate at the head of the chamber. Beck at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden developed a ring-pattern injector that worked well in subscale engines. But the design proved unstable in the 25 tf engine. Therefore, it was decided to stick with the 18-head chamber for V-2 production.
References: 693.
During 1941 - Launch Site: Peenemuende. Launch Complex: -. Launch Pad: -. Launch Vehicle: V-2. - A4 facilities Nation: Germany. The A4 assembly hall at Area 7 at Peenemuende was 30 m high and 50 m long. After assembly, the missile was moved to the cold flow test stand. There each rocket was tested and calibration documents were generated, necessary for the launch troops to take into account when preparing the rocket and programming its guidance system. The launch pad itself was ringed by a 7 m wide concrete embankment, and sunk 6 m into the ground. The viewpoint was 150 m from the pad, at the southern, smaller end of the complex.
The pad was surrounded by instrumentation rooms. Water was delivered at 500 litres/second through a 1.20 m diameter pipe to a molybdenum steel cooling section, consisting of many pipes running around the exhaust blast diverter. Other test stands included number 10, where the effects of the rocket exhaust on different material surfaces was tested; and number 8, where newly delivered engines were fired and calibrated. These certification tests ran as long as 650 seconds on the water-cooled stand. Area 9 was used for launches of the Wasserfall surface-to-air missile, and Area 2 for tests of the A4 using nitric acid and Visol as propellants. Area 4 was devoted to firing tests of engines installed in aircraft fuselages, and Area 3 contained the 1000 kgf engine test stand. This stand included pump and steam test stands, and a hydrogen peroxide plant. Area 6 was built to the same design as the largest test stands at Kummersdorf, and used for A5 tests. Hundreds of A5's were shot from Greifswalder Oie.
References: 693.
1941 January 6 - Launch Vehicle: Goddard. Model: Goddard P-C. - Goddard Series P Section C rocket static test Nation: USA. Static test, highest lift so far recorded, 985 lb. References: 482.
1941 January 15 - Launch Vehicle: EA 1941. -
 Barre repot Nation: France. Barre completed a comprehensive report on the military potential of rocketry. He sketeched out ballistic missiles with 1000 km range, powered by liquid oxygen/gasoline engines. Armor-piercing rockets could reach 2000 m/s and defeat any tank armor. Anti-aircraft rockets would intercept aircraft in half the time. Rocket-boosted bombs would destroy enemey emplacements. Air-augmented rockets could reach even higher range and efficiencies.
1941 January 23 - - Glenn Research Center founded. Nation: USA.
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