Date: January 31, 1958
Soon after the USSR had launched its own missiles into space, the U.S. responded with the Explorer initiative, launching their first satellite, Explorer I, into space.
“Following the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency was directed to launch a satellite using its Jupiter C rocket developed under the direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun” (NASA.gov) With the help of Wernher von Braun, a leading scientist in the creation of the Nazi missiles, the U.S. would be able to manufacture its own rockets and missiles.
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| http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/209537main_explorer1-blkback-226.jpg |
The main instrument on the satellite was a cosmic ray detector. Once the cosmic rays were seen as being very minimal, Dr. James Van Allen theorized that the satellite had come in contact with a radiation belt. This belt would later be known as Van Allen Belt (NASA.gov). Explorer 1 revolved around Earth in a looping orbit that took it as close as 354 kilometers to Earth and as far as 2,515 kilometers from it. It made one orbit every 114.8 minutes, or a total of 12.54 orbits per day. The satellite itself was 203 centimeters long and 15.9 centimeters in diameter (NASA.gov). Explorer I was at its final transmission on May 23, 1958. On March 31, 1970, Explorer I descended into and burned in the atmosphere.
The start o the Explorer program was the first step for the U.S. to get into the space race and to eventually become the prominent leader in space exploration.
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