Mindless Conversation

50 years ago today Explorer 1 (aka: Satellite 1958 Alpha) was launched. It was the first US payload delivered to earth orbit. It was part of the US program for the International Geophysical Year.

Explorer 1 was created at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. Scientific instrumentations of Explorer 1 satellite was designed and built under the direction of Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, and a cosmic ray instrumentation package was designed by Dr. George Ludwig, of Iowa’s Cosmic Ray Laboratory. It was equipped with a geiger counter for the purposes of detecting cosmic rays.

A major discovery was the Van Allen Belts. This are charged particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic field. Explorer I stopped transmitting data on May 23, 1958, because its batteries died. It remained in orbit for more than 12 years. It finally reentered over the Pacific Ocean on March 31, 1970. Explorer 1 was the first of the long-running Explorer program, which has contained at least 83 missions.

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