Background
Koelle was born in 1925 in the Free City of Danzig, son of a lieutenant-colonel in the police.
university professor Aerospace engineer
Koelle was born in 1925 in the Free City of Danzig, son of a lieutenant-colonel in the police.
Technical University of Berlin.
In 1965, he accepted the at the Technical University of Berlin. After Germany annexed Danzig in 1939, Koelle joined the Luftwaffe and served as a pilot during the war. During his time in a prisoner of war camp after the war, Koelle turned his back on military matters and turned to the field of civilian spaceflight.
In 1948 he re-formed the pre-war German Society for Space Travel, which brought him into contact with von Braun and many others of the former Peenemünde team
In 1951 he and another ex-pilot helped von Braun publish his book Mars Project in Germany, arranging a publisher to take it on. He started studying mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart, and led the Astronautical Research Institute between 1952 and 1954, when he received his Diploma-Ing.
On his graduation, von Braun invited him to join the ABMA team at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. He took charge of Preliminary Design Section of the Structures and Mechanics Laboratory.
The section had the task of carrying out "blue-sky" studies into conversions and modifications of various missiles for use as space launchers.
Over time the section grew from 4 to 70 people as their studies on what was then known as "Super-Jupiter" evolved into the "Juno V" and finally into the Saturn I. Koelle"s last job for the Army involved a feasibility study for a lunar base under Project Horizon. When ABMA became part of National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1960, the Redstone Arsenal became the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the Preliminary Design Section became the Future Projects Office. The Office served to coordinate between MSFC and National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a whole, as well as continuing to study new missions based on the Saturn rockets.
In 1960 Koelle became a naturalized American citizen.
He took his doctorate in Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin in 1963. As Koelle watched the conduct of the Vietnam War force reduction in National Aeronautics and Space Administration budgets, he concluded that the rapid progress he had participated in was no longer possible, and decided to look for other work.
In 1965 he accepted a teaching position at the Technical University of Berlin. Following the death of Eugen Sänger (1964), the University offered him the in 1965, a position he held for 30 years.