The first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, was launched on January 31, 1958, marking a pivotal moment in American space history. Coming just months after the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellites, NASA’s ...

Explorer 1 was less than 2 meters long and weighed about 13.4 kg. The model William Hayward Pickering, James Van Allen, and Wernher von Braun are brandishing triumphantly in this photo is the ...

Sixty years ago today, the United States used a modified German V-2 rocket to send the country’s first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit around the Earth. This momentous achievement was just the first ...

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. The date ...

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IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. This is one of several full-scale ...

Learn about the role that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory played before the creation of NASA. Explorer 1 traces the story of the role JPL played before the creation of NASA and how the lab was given a ...

Click to open image viewer. This is one of several examples of the Explorer 1 payload section in the collection, consisting of machined and painted metal shells with no instrumentation. This outer ...