Oldest human-made object still in orbit launched in ’58
On March 17, 1958, the Navy launched the Vanguard 1 satellite from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, was sent into space on Jan. 31, 1958, some three months after the successful launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1. Explorer 1 entered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up in 1970.
Although communications with Vanguard 1 were lost decades ago, it continues to circle the Earth — the oldest human-made object still in orbit. From the Evening Tribune, Monday, March 17, 1958:
NAVY LAUNCHES SATELLITE VANGUARD’S ORBIT MAPPED HERE EISENHOWER HAILS CANAVERAL VICTORY ORBIT REACHES OUT 2,500 MILES; CREW HOLD ‘WILD CELEBRATION’
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — The Navy triumphantly hurled a new American satellite into space today in the nose of a Vanguard.
The rocket overcame past failures in the bursting flame of a spectacular launching.
President Eisenhower made the victorious announcement that the United States had put a new baby moon in orbit around the earth.
It will be called Vanguard I.
After one crushing disappointment after another, the Vanguard, a pencil-thin thing of silvery beauty, cast off the mantle of frustration and with a roar of triumph hurtled straight up into the Florida skies.
Some two hours and 30 minutes after the 4:16 a.m. San Diego time launching, the official announcement was made from Washington that the Navy had accomplished the orbiting of a new moon in the skies.
TOTAL WEIGHT PLACED IN EXCESS OF 50 POUNDS
“I want to emphasize that we put two objects into orbit with a total weight in excess of 50 pounds,” Dr. John P. Hagen, chief of the Vanguard Project, told reporters in Washington.
The second object is the third stage rocket which carried the Vanguard, he said.
Hagen also announced that the Navy will “try very soon” to put into orbit the regular 211⁄2-inch scientific satellite, which originally was scheduled for launching by March 1.
Hagen said that Vanguard I, which went into orbit this morning, will circle the earth “for a great many years— certainly five or 10 years.”
In its orbit around the earth, Vanguard I reaches a maximum height of 2,500 miles and comes as close as 400 miles above the earth, according to very rough preliminary calculation he said.
LONG WEEKS OF TENSION COMES TO END
The announcement freed anxious watchers at Cape Canaveral of long weeks of tension—tension that had built up through two actual Vanguard launching failures and a third “scrubbing.”
The news touched off a wild celebration in the blockhouse yard by the Vanguard launching platform.
Newsmen who had waited out three postponements in the last 10 days, watched from a mile and a half away as the slender, 72-foot Vanguard road a beam of white fire into the blue sky.