Explorer 1 was the first unmanned satellite that the U.S. launched into space on January 31st, 1958 ultimately making the U.S. the second nation to make it to space. This was a very important moment for the country considering the one of many unsuccessful attempts at launching anything into space, this was a big confidence booster during the Space Race “(Space.com).” After the success of the launch, It was thought we were finally prepared to explore space. After the successful launch of Sputnik, this only made our engineers work harder trying to improve any mechanics in being finally being able to launch our own rockets into space “(Space.com).” This satellite was designed and built by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Its design was simple
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was able to launch into space, which proved to be successful. Scientifically speaking Explorer’s 1 goal was to survey the earth to study it’s temperature, radiation and gravitational fields “(Explorer and Early Satellites).” Of the 30 pounds that Explorer 1 carried, 18 pounds of it was made up of instruments that it was carrying with it to space. It’s instrumentation consisted of a cosmic-ray detection package, temperature sensors, and a micrometeorite detector “(Jet Propulsion Laboratory).” Although it’s primary instrument was the cosmic-ray detector, which revealed what seemed to be fewer cosmic rays in its orbit. Van Allen, then theorized that the: “instrument may have been saturated by very strong radiation from a belt of charged particles trapped in space by Earth's magnetic field.” “(NASA).” Two months, later this was confirmed by another U.S. satellite and became known as the Van Allen Belts, which was considerably an outstanding discovery at that time. Thanks to Explorer-1 we were successfully able to detect the trapped radiation in the Earth's magnetosphere, which we know now as the Van Allen Radiation Belt. Which then led to the expansion of knowledge of radiation and built the foundation to begin the study of the Earth’s magnetosphere “(National Aeronaurotics and Space
was able to launch into space, which proved to be successful. Scientifically speaking Explorer’s 1 goal was to survey the earth to study it’s temperature, radiation and gravitational fields “(Explorer and Early Satellites).” Of the 30 pounds that Explorer 1 carried, 18 pounds of it was made up of instruments that it was carrying with it to space. It’s instrumentation consisted of a cosmic-ray detection package, temperature sensors, and a micrometeorite detector “(Jet Propulsion Laboratory).” Although it’s primary instrument was the cosmic-ray detector, which revealed what seemed to be fewer cosmic rays in its orbit. Van Allen, then theorized that the: “instrument may have been saturated by very strong radiation from a belt of charged particles trapped in space by Earth's magnetic field.” “(NASA).” Two months, later this was confirmed by another U.S. satellite and became known as the Van Allen Belts, which was considerably an outstanding discovery at that time. Thanks to Explorer-1 we were successfully able to detect the trapped radiation in the Earth's magnetosphere, which we know now as the Van Allen Radiation Belt. Which then led to the expansion of knowledge of radiation and built the foundation to begin the study of the Earth’s magnetosphere “(National Aeronaurotics and Space