ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—A Las Cruces funeral home has confirmed that Lowell Randall, a pioneer rocket scientist who helped launched the U.S. space program, has died. He was 96 and died Tuesday.
His biographer said the Roswell, N.M.-born scientist died of natural causes at a Las Cruces nursing home.
Randall was part of a team lead by rocket pioneer Robert Goddard who developed liquid Jet Assist Take Off rocket engines, a key element for moon spaceflights. He later became Goddard team’s chief test engineer at the Naval Research Station at Annapolis.
He later returned to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to test Redstone rocket engines, later used to send the first American astronauts into space. Randall then led a team at Martin Marietta Corporation in Colorado to test intercontinental ballistic missiles.
