Vanguard TV-0, also called Vanguard Test Vehicle-Zero, was the first

sub-orbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

test flight of a Vanguard rocket as part of the

Project Vanguard Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket. as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral ...

. Project Vanguard was a program managed by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now

Lockheed-Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is ...

), which intended to launch the first

artificial satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisoto ...

into

Earth orbit Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi) in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes days (1 sidereal year), during which time Eart ...

using a Vanguard rocket, powered by a basic design for large liquid rockets."The Vanguard Satellite Launching Vehicle — An Engineering Summary" B. Klawans April 1960, 212 pages
Martin Company Engineering Report No 11022, PDF of an optical copy as the

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...

from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Background

Vanguard TV-0's success was an important part of the

Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...

. The Space Race started between

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, as a race began to retrieve as many V-2 rockets and

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

V-2 staff as possible. Three hundred rail-car loads of V-2 rocket weapons and parts were captured and shipped to the United States, also 126 of the principal designers of the V-2, including

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

and

Walter Dornberger Major-General Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger (6 September 1895 – 26 June 1980) was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World War I and World War II. He was a leader of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket programme and other projects a ...

, went to America. von Braun, his brother Magnus von Braun, and seven others decided to surrender to the United States military in

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...

to ensure they were not captured by the advancing Soviets or shot dead by the Nazis to prevent their capture. Thus the V-2 program started the Space Race, the V-2 could not orbit, but could reach a height of on long range trajectory and up to if launched vertically. Due to later problems with Vanguard it was not the first rocket to put into orbit an unmanned

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

. The first

small-lift launch vehicle A small-lift launch vehicle is a rocket orbital launch vehicle that is capable of lifting or less (by NASA classification) or under (by Roscosmos classification) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). The next larger category consists of med ...

was the Sputnik rocket, it put into orbit an unmanned

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...

carrier rocket A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and syste ...

Sergei Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (russian: Сергей Павлович Королёв, Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov, sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ kərɐˈlʲɵf, Ru-Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.ogg; ukr, Сергій Павлович Корольов, ...

in the Soviet Union, derived from the R-7 Semyorka ICBM. On 4 October 1957, the Sputnik rocket was used to perform the world's first satellite launch, placing Sputnik 1 satellite into a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

. The United States responded by launching the Vanguard rocket, that was intended to be the first launch vehicle the

would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV-3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a

Juno I The Juno I was a four-stage American space launch vehicle, used to launch lightweight payloads into low Earth orbit. The launch vehicle was used between January 1958 to December 1959. The launch vehicle was a member of the Redstone launch ve ...

rocket launched on 1 February 1958. Thus

Vanguard 1 Vanguard 1 (Harvard designation: 1958-Beta 2, COSPAR ID: 1958-005B ) is an American satellite that was the fourth artificial Earth-orbiting satellite to be successfully launched, following Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1. It was laun ...

was the second successful U.S. orbital launch. Thus started the Space Race, that gave the drive to put men on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

with the Apollo program.Key Apollo Source Documents

Launch

Ordinarily the countdown began five hours before launch at T-300 minutes. At T-255 minutes, the technicians turned on the satellite and checked it. At T-95 minutes, liquid oxygen (LOX) began pouring into the oxidizer tanks of the vehicle. At T-65 minutes, the gantry crane retired from the flight firing structure. At T-3 minutes, the time-unit ped for the countdown changed to seconds (T-180 seconds), and instrumentation men shifted the telemetry, radar beacons, and command receivers to internal power. At T-30 seconds, the cooling-air umbilical dropped and the LOX-vents on the vehicle closed. At T-0, the fire switch closed, the electrical umbilical dropped from the vehicle, and about six seconds later (T+6), if all was well, the vehicle lifted off. In October 1956, Viking 13, refurbished and renamed Vanguard Test Vehicle-Zero, or TV-0, arrived at Cape Canaveral. In November 1956, it was transported to pad 18A. Vanguard TV-0 was only a one-stage test flight. It was launched on 8 December 1956 at 01:05 local time (06:05 GMT) at Cape Canaveral from

launch pad A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term ''launch pad'' can be used to describe just the central launch platform ( mobile launcher platform), or the entir ...

LC-18A. A Viking launch stand was shipped from

White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established as the White Sands Proving Ground on 9July 1945. White Sands National P ...

for use at the Cape Canaveral. The one-stage test flight was to prepare for the late launch of the full three-stage Vanguard. One of the goals of the test was to test the new

Minitrack The Minitrack Network was the first U.S. satellite tracking network to become operational, in 1957. It was used to track the flights of Sputnik, Vanguard, Explorer, and other early space efforts. Minitrack was the progenitor of Spacecraft Trackin ...

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

used as part of the tracking systems. Shortly after two minutes after lift off a small

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', "remote", an ...

antennas In radio engineering, an antenna or aerial is the interface between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in metal conductors, used with a transmitter or receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies an ...

unrolled from the rocket transmitting an oscillator's beep. The beep was picked up at the Air Force Missile Test Center's (AFMTC) tracking station. Vanguard TV-0 was very successful, the one-stage rocket achieved an altitude of and a down range of , landing in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. Vanguard TV-0 was followed by Vanguard TV-1. Vanguard TV-1 was a successful two-stage prototype rocket. With Vanguard TV-0 success, the next suborbital test flight, Vanguard TV-1, was launched in May 1957.

References

External links

VIKING U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Background

Launch

See also

References

External links

Further reading