The first satellites

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Although Soviet plans to orbit a satellite during the IGY had been discussed extensively in technical circles, the October 4, 1957, launch of Sputnik 1 came as a surprise, and even a shock, to most people. Prior to the launch, skepticism had been widespread about the U.S.S.R.’s technical capabilities to develop both a sophisticated scientific satellite and a rocket powerful enough to put it into orbit. Under Korolyov’s direction, however, the Soviet Union had been building an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with engines designed by Glushko, that was capable of delivering a heavy nuclear warhead to American targets. That ICBM, called the R-7 or Semyorka (“Number 7”), was first successfully tested on August 21, 1957, which cleared the way for its use to launch a satellite. Fearing that development of the elaborate scientific satellite intended as the Soviet IGY contribution would keep the U.S.S.R. from being the first into space, Korolyov and his associates, particularly Tikhonravov, designed a much simpler 83.6-kg (184.3-pound) sphere carrying only two radio transmitters and four antennas. After the success of the R-7 in August, that satellite was rushed into production and became Sputnik 1. A second, larger satellite carrying scientific instruments and the dog Laika, the first living creature in orbit, was launched November 3. The even larger, instrumented spacecraft originally intended to be the first Soviet satellite went into orbit in May 1958 as Sputnik 3. (For additional information on Korolyov’s contribution to the Soviet space program, see Energia.)

After President Eisenhower, in May 1955, had committed the United States to an IGY satellite, the army, navy, and air force competed for the assignment. (No civilian organization existed that was capable of developing the launch vehicle needed.) The mission was assigned to the Naval Research Laboratory rather than to the army’s Redstone Arsenal, where Braun worked, so that the work would not interfere with Redstone’s higher-priority development of ballistic missiles. The navy project, called Vanguard, would use a new launch vehicle based on modified Viking and Aerobee sounding rockets to orbit a small scientific satellite. Vanguard made slow progress over the subsequent two years, but, after Sputnik’s success, the White House pressed to have the satellite launched as quickly as possible. On December 6, 1957, the Vanguard rocket rose only slightly off its launch pad before exploding and sending the satellite not into orbit but onto a Florida beach.

Braun and his army superiors had not agreed with the decision to assign the satellite mission to the navy. After the launches of the first two Sputniks, they secured permission to attempt their own satellite launch. In anticipation of such a situation, they had kept in touch with JPL and Van Allen and so were able to prepare a satellite quickly. On January 31, 1958, Braun’s Jupiter-C launch vehicle, a modified Redstone ballistic missile, carried into orbit Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite. Designed at JPL, Explorer 1 carried Van Allen’s experiment to measure cosmic rays. The results from this experiment and similar ones aboard other U.S. and Soviet satellites launched that same year revealed that Earth is surrounded by two zones of radiation, now known as the Van Allen radiation belts, comprising energetic particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic field.

Initial satellite launches were scientific in character, but U.S. government interest in reconnaissance satellites persisted. In February 1958, President Eisenhower authorized the development, under conditions of great secrecy, of such a spacecraft. The project, which came to be called Corona, would take pictures over the Soviet Union and return them to Earth by dropping the exposed film in a capsule that would be snatched out of the air as it parachuted back from space. After 12 failures, the first successful Corona mission took place on August 18, 1960; the returned film contained images of many previously unknown Soviet airfields and missile sites.

Development of space organizations