5/1/2023 0 Comments Space movie explorerThese used solid rocket motors the laboratory had developed for the Army's Sergeant guided missile. JPL’s role was to prepare the three upper stages for the launch vehicle, which included the satellite itself. Their work centered around the Redstone Jupiter-C rocket, which was derived from the V-2 missile Germany had used against Britain during the war. (The "jet" in JPL's name traces back to rocket motors used to provide "jet assisted" takeoff for Army planes during World War II.) In 1954, the laboratory's engineers began working with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Alabama on a project called "Orbiter." The Army team included Wernher von Braun (who would later design NASA's Saturn V rocket) and his team of engineers. Flash back to events leading up to the successful launch of America's Explorer 1, and the beginnings of America's Space Age, as told through newsreel and documentary clips of the time.Īt that time, JPL, which was part of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, primarily performed defense work for the Army. satellite and launch vehicle capable of reaching orbit.Īgainst the backdrop of the 1950s Cold War, after the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik, Americans were determined to launch their own Earth-orbiting satellite. Soon, a competition began between the Army, Air Force and Navy to develop a U.S. Both the American and Soviet governments seized on the idea, announcing they would launch spacecraft as part of the effort. In 1954, an international council of scientists called for artificial satellites to be orbited as part of a worldwide science program called the International Geophysical Year (IGY), set to take place from July 1957 to December 1958. Accordingly, then-President Eisenhower sought to ensure that the first American satellites were not perceived to be military or national security assets. As the Cold War between the two countries deepened, it had not yet been determined whether the sovereignty of a nation's borders extended upward into space. Yet great uncertainty hung over the pursuit. In the mid-1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union were proceeding toward the capability to put a spacecraft in orbit. "It was a watershed moment for the nation that also defined who we are at JPL." spaceflight, as well as the scientific exploration of space, which led to a series of bold missions that have opened humanity's eyes to new wonders of the solar system," said Michael Watkins, current director of JPL. "The launch of Explorer 1 marked the beginning of U.S. Explorer 1, as it would soon come to be called, was America's first satellite. The rocket's sole payload was a javelin-shaped satellite built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. NASA had yet to be formed, and the honor of this first flight belonged to the U.S. Sixty years ago next week, the hopes of Cold War America soared into the night sky as a rocket lofted skyward above Cape Canaveral, a soon-to-be-famous barrier island off the Florida coast.
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