Robert Goddard's first liquid-fuel rocket: where are its remains 100 years later?

Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket from Auburn, Massachusetts, on March 16, 1926, and the flight lasted only a few seconds. Parts and fragments from that rocket are scattered across museum collections while replicas are on public display.

Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket from a snowy field near Auburn, Massachusetts, on March 16, 1926. The vehicle rose briefly and then fell back; Goddard recovered pieces and brought them to his laboratory. He documented the flight in notebooks and his wife Esther took photos that survive today. Over the decades replicas and reconstructions have been displayed in museums while fragments from the original flight have entered several collections. Known details: - The March 16, 1926, launch is recorded in Goddard's notebook as rising about 41 feet and traveling about 184 feet in roughly 2.5 seconds, and he noted that the lower half of the nozzle burned off. - Esther Goddard photographed the recovered parts, and Goddard wrote that he brought the rocket's remains back to his laboratory but did not preserve the vehicle as a single historic object. - The National Air and Space Museum received a Goddard rocket from May 1926 (donated in 1950) that its catalog describes as likely including the nozzle recovered from the March flight, an attribution based in part on Goddard's notes. - An inventory at the Roswell Museum and Arts Center lists a protective conical cap, nozzle fragments, and a combustion chamber attributed to the March 1926 flight; the museum has been closed since October 2024 after a flood and its executive director said four claimed pieces are held there. - Replicas and reconstructions have been displayed to help explain Nell's role: a full-scale recreation was long shown by the National Air and Space Museum (now at the Udvar-Hazy Center), Marshall Space Flight Center and AIAA built functional replicas in 2003, and a full-size replica recently went on display at The Museum of Worcester with a historic support frame on loan from Clark University. Summary: The original 1926 rocket survives mainly in fragments and archival records rather than as a single intact artifact, and pieces attributed to that launch are held in multiple institutions. One catalog entry and museum inventories link specific fragments (including nozzle parts and a combustion chamber) to the March flight, while other elements remain in archival collections such as Goddard's notebook at Clark University. The Roswell Museum, which holds several claimed pieces, remains closed for recovery work with plans to return the collection in a revised exhibit in the coming years. Undetermined at this time.