Vanguard 1: The American satellite lost the race, but it’s been in orbit for 60 years

Despite the fact that the International Cosmonautics Day is celebrated on April 12, on the anniversary of the first manned flight into space, the launch date of the first artificial Earth satellite is considered the date of space exploration. The first successful launch of the spacecraft took place in October 1957. It was the Soviet Sputnik-1, which forever went down in history and was ahead of its American rivals - Explorer-1 and Avangard-1. But no matter how strange it may seem, the third Vanguard-1 is still in orbit around the Earth. Of course, it has not been controlled for a long time and does not perform any functions, being ordinary space debris.

Today, most space programs are developed by international teams of scientists and the International Space Station is a vivid confirmation of this. And 60 years ago, when humanity took its first steps in space, the world powers fought a grand rivalry for the right to be the first conqueror of space. The best engineers and designers of the USSR and the USA worked on the creation of an artificial Earth satellite and a launch vehicle that would put it into orbit.

The Americans relied on the Vanguard program, which was supervised by the US Navy. After a series of high-profile statements, it was announced that the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, which will be the American spacecraft, will take place in 1957. But the Avangard project can be called an unsuccessful page in the history of American cosmonautics: the launch vehicle, which was supposed to put the satellite into orbit, behaved unstably and several launches ended in accidents.

Today, more than 1000 artificial satellites in operational condition revolve around our planet, and about 3000 more that have already exhausted their resources. Most of the existing devices belong to the USA, Russia, China and Japan. Meteorological, communication satellites, astronomical, navigation and biosatellites - all of them play an important role in human life. Space assistants are of great importance for terrestrial civilization, and our life is impossible to imagine without them.

Watch the video: Vanguard 60th Anniversary: A Look Back (April 2024).