50 Years ago, on January 31, 1958, The United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1.
Despite the Soviet Union orbiting two satellites before them, and the embarrasing failure of Vanguard 1, Wherner von Braun's team managed to put the 14 kg satellite successfully into a 360x2500 km orbit at 10:48 PM. As well as going some way to making up for the embarrasment that Sputnik caused, Explorer 1 also made an
important scientific discovery when James Van Allen detected belts of radiation circling the Earth that now bear his name.
