X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Explorer 1


Judica-Cordiglia brothers

Working with scavenged and improvised equipment, they claimed to have successfully monitored transmissions from the Soviet Sputnik program and Explorer 1, the first American satellite, using equipment that recorded flight information such as telemetry, voice recordings and visual data.

Surface-barrier transistor

On January 31, 1958, the United States first artificial Earth satellite was launched at Cape Canaveral in Florida, which was called Explorer 1, and was developed by the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).


Milton Rosen

Thus the first US satellite, Explorer 1, was launched January 31, 1958 by a substantially larger Army Jupiter-C rocket, based on the Redstone missile, which had been developed by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) at Huntsville, Alabama under the leadership of Wernher von Braun.

Vanguard 1

James Van Allen of the University of Iowa proposed a cylindrical satellite based on his work with Rockoons, which became Explorer 1, the first American satellite.


see also