Wernher von Braun
/ˌvɜːnə vɒn ˈbraʊn/
/ˌvɜːrnər vɑːn ˈbraʊn/
- (1912-77) a US expert on rockets, born in Germany. He designed Germany's V2 rocket during the Second World War. In 1945, von Braun and his German team went to the US where he became head of the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama. He developed the first US satellite (= electronic device that moves around the earth in space), the Saturn rocket used for the NASA Apollo program flights to the moon, and the idea of the space shuttle.