60 Years Ago Today; Vanguard 2 launched - First Weather Satellite

[Dennis Donovan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_2



Vanguard 2 or Vanguard II is an Earth-orbiting satellite launched February 17, 1959, aboard a Vanguard SLV 4 rocket as part of the United States Navy's Project Vanguard. The success of this launch was an important part of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Vanguard 2 was the first weather satellite. The satellite was designed to measure cloud-cover distribution over the daylight portion of its orbit, for a period of 19 days, and to provide information on the density of the atmosphere for the lifetime of its orbit (about 300 years).

As of May 2016, Vanguard 2 was still in orbit.

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Still up there, dead as a doornail perhaps, but still up there...

The Vanguard launches didn't always go well:

[lapfog_1]

1. early in my NASA career

we would schedule meetings about projects unlikely to "get off the ground" in the "Vanguard Conference Room".. ah sweet irony

[malaise]

2. How we take them for granted today

Thanks for this

Get thee to the greatest page for visibility