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US Space History -- America's First Satellite

submitted by silvercord

1 decade 7 years 4 months ago

At a mere 31 pounds, it was tiny by today's spacecraft standards. Yet, as it sprang skyward from Cape Canaveral, Fla., January 31, 1958, aboard a Jupiter-C rocket, the Explorer 1 satellite carried with it the enormous hopes and dreams of Cold War America. The country was still reeling from the Soviet Union's shocking launches of Sputnik 1 and 2, and the failure of America's first Vanguard launch in the month before.