First successful Vanguard satellite launch into orbit, March 17, 1958

Let's commemorate the second successful U.S. satellite launch, Vanguard 1, on this date in 1958.

The U.S. had two competing satellite programs during the IGY, Explorer and Vanguard.

Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket. The Navy proposal included all three aspects of the mission: launch vehicle, payload satellite, and ground tracking stations. 

In response to the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 Oct. 1957, the U.S. revived the Explorer program, directed by Wernher von Braun under the aegis of the the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). 

Ironically, the Air Force proposal was not pursued.

As discussed in an earlier post, the first three-stage Vanguard test rocket, TV-3, was launched on 6 Dec. 1957, but lost thrust, settled back on the launch pad, and exploded. The next Vanguard launch on 5 Feb 1958 flew for just 1 minute the vehicle lost control and then  broke up.

Meanwhile, ABMA, together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), built Explorer 1 and successfully launched the first U.S. satellite on 1 Feb. 1958, as discussed in this post.

On 17 March 1958, Vanguard 1, aka TV-4, became the second artificial satellite successfully placed in Earth orbit by the United States. Three times a charm! It was the first solar cell powered satellite. Just 6" in diameter and weighing 3 lb., Vanguard 1 was much smaller than Sputniks 1 and 2, hence dubbed as the "grapefruit satellite" by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Vanguard 1, and the upper stage of its launch vehicle, are the oldest artificial satellites still in space, as Vanguard's predecessors, Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1, have decayed from orbit. Primary scientific objectives of this mission were to determine atmospheric density and the shape of the earth. The solar powered transmitter operated until May, 1964.

Below is a cover from my collection postmarked from Cape Canaveral on the 15th anniversary of Vanguard 1's launch. The cahet shows images of the rocket and satellite. The stamp is Scott #1402 (1971), bearing the image of Dwight Eisenhower, who had been president during the IGY. It is signed by John P. Hagen, director of the Vanguard program.

Cover from my collection for the 15th anniversary of the Vanguard 1 launch

Scott Manley has a nice YouTube video on these two programs and their launches:

My first real job out of college with Fairchild Space and Electronics Co. was in the space power subsystems group. We designed and sometimes fabricated solar cell array-battery power subsystems for satellites, a legacy of the Vanguard 1 mission.