Adding rockets to the program

Initial IGY planning envisioned the use of well-established ground-based instruments and instruments carried aloft by balloons. Although rocket-borne instruments were anticipated, they were not initially seen as a major program component. With time, however, the growing potential of sounding rockets for a wider variety of observations was recognized.

As an early step to organize a rocket component within the United States, the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel (UARRP) established a Special Committee for the IGY with Homer Newell as chairman. As U. S. planning for the IGY progressed, the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, having the official responsibility for overseeing the U. S. IGY program, established a Technical Panel on Rocketry. The UARRP transferred the Special Committee for the IGY to the Technical Panel on Rocketry, and further planning for the rocket program progressed under that umbrella.

The National Academy notified the CSAGI of the U. S. intent to include a sounding rocket program as part of its contribution to the IGY. That led, at the second meeting of the CSAGI at Rome in September and October 1954, to the formation of a Working Group on Rockets under Homer Newell’s chairmanship. With that step, rocket sound­ings became an integral part of the IGY program, and by the time the IGY opened, a formidable program of rocket observations was in place.