Click to open image viewer. This is a Vanguard TV-2BU rocket, the U.S.'s first rocket specifically designed to launch satellites. As part of the Vanguard program, the Vanguard TV-2BU test vehicle was ...

In the race to conquer space during the Cold War, America’s first major attempt to launch a satellite ended in national embarrassment. The Vanguard rocket program, intended to showcase US ...

Click to open image viewer. This is the General Electric X-405 rocket engine for the first stage of the Vanguard launch vehicle. Vanguard was the first U.S. rocket specifically designed to launch a ...

On Dec. 6, 1957, the Naval Research Laboratory attempted to launch Vanguard Test Vehicle 3, an answer to Sputnik and part of the American effort to put a satellite in orbit during the International ...

On March 17, 1958, the Navy launched the Vanguard 1 satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, was sent into space on Jan. 31, 1958, some three months after the ...

In a matter of minutes after the Navy blasted off its fifth Vanguard rocket at Cape Canaveral one night last week, instruments flashed word to Central Control that all three stages had fired ...

America 250: The Space Race | From Cold War rivalry to lunar ambitions ...