U.S. launched first satellite 45 years ago
From John Bisney
CNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) -- The United States climbed back into the space race with the former Soviet Union 45 years ago when the U.S. Army launched the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, into orbit from Florida's Cape Canaveral.
Although the spacecraft discovered radiation belts around the Earth, its symbolic value was of equal or greater significance, matching an identical feat by the Soviet Union almost four months earlier when it launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957.
The Soviet "baby moon," as the press initially labeled it, shocked the West by demonstrating a potental capability to spy on or attack the United States from space.
The first U.S. orbital attempt on December 6, 1957, ended in failure just one second after liftoff when the rocket carrying Vanguard 1 lost power and toppled over, exploding in a fireball. The next two U.S. orbital launch attempts after Explorer I also failed.
But late in the evening on January 31, 1958, a modified Redstone ballistic missile dubbed Jupiter C roared to life on Pad 26A, boosting Explorer I into an elliptical orbit seven minutes later. Ground stations established contact two hours later with the thin, cylindrical satellite.
Shortly after the signals were confirmed, President Dwight Eisenhower made a radio announcement from his vacation home in Augusta, Georgia.
The satellite consisted of the fourth stage of the Jupiter C, and was built by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then run by the Army. It provided preliminary information on the environment and conditions outside Earth's atmosphere, and discovered radiation belts later named after the cosmic ray instrument scientist Van Allen.
Explorer I circled the Earth more than 58,000 times before re-entering the atmosphere over the South Pacific on March 31, 1970.
In an illustration of progress made in the nearly half-century since, the U.S. Air Force put a Global Positioning System satellite into orbit Wednesday to help coordinate military ground forces. The satellite joined 26 other GPS spacecraft circling Earth and provides the military and civilians with precise navigational information.
