A Mars Odyssey

Fifty years ago, on March 17, 1958, the space race between the Society Union and United States began, with the launching of the Vanguard I at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The world’s first solar-powered satellite, it is also the oldest artificial satellite still orbiting Earth to a total sum of 196,990 revolutions or 5.7 billion nautical miles in its 50-year lifetime. According to Space.com, this is equivalent to the distance from the Earth to beyond Pluto, and halfway back.

Between the years 1955 and 1959, the Vanguard Project involved the United States initiation into the International Geophysical Year (IGY), a cooperative scientific effort on an international level to study Earth’s physical properties. A competition was held to decide which U.S. government agency would have the best ability to not only build the satellite, but also launch it successfully—with the NRL plan winning with its Viking Program. This early pioneer task involved many areas for the satellite’s development: design, build, launch, place it into orbit, and to track an artificial satellite carrying a scientific experiment. It was during this time that Cape Canaveral, Florida, was built as suitable satellite-launching facilities were not available at this time, with the central control being maintained at the main NRL site in Washington, D.C.

NRL’s first down-range instrumentation for determining the satellite’s orbit, called the Mini Track, was developed by NRL in 1956—involving phase comparison and angle tracking—and a fan-shaped, vertical antenna beam system.

Once the Vanguard I was launched, it went on record as achieving the highest altitude of any man-made vehicle at that time, establishing the geologists’ suspicions that Earth actually is “pear-shaped” instead of a perfect circle. Its instruments consisted of two radios, a temperature sensor, and was considered the first orbiting vehicle to be powered by solar energy. The electrical power involved photovoltaic silicon solar cells up until 1964, when its experiments and transmitter fell silent to the world which made it–still in orbit, and remaining so until the 22nd century. Its predecessor, the full scale Vanguard II at 20-inch diameter sphere at 21 pounds, became known to first observe and record the cloud cover that was around Earth, in addition to being a forerunner of the television infrared observation satellites (TIROS). Both Vanguards are recognized as being the prototype for our space program today.

Compared to Russia’s Sputnik I, a 200-pound satellite also involved in the space race between the two big powers, the United State’s small 3-pound, 6-inch-diameter Vanguard I earned the name “the grapefruit satellite”. Involved in its development, the United States Army, Air Force, and Navy collaborated for the tracking, building, and launching of the small Vanguard I, with official responsibility falling to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The design of the Vanguard was actually based on the German V-2 and the Viking Rockets that were both used to probe Earth’s upper atmosphere.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Mission History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.