Public jubilation

During the next two days, news coverage of the event swelled across the country and throughout the world, as editors and reporters rushed to provide their readers with a basic background in rocketry and endless details of the momentous event. Although newspaper coverage was rather sparse in Saturday’s morning papers because of the timing, the afternoon papers were dominated by the news.

In the Sunday morning editions, the press had a field day. Papers across the country devoted much of their front pages to coverage of the event. The New York Times headline read16:

U. S. SATELLITE IS “WORKING NICELY”; Army Ordered to Launch
Another; Also Plans Reconnaissance “Moon”

That paper devoted a substantial number of full pages to coverage of the event.

Not surprisingly, the Florida newspapers were especially effusive. The Tampa Sunday Tribune headline read17:

U. S. SATELLITE WHIRLS 1700 MILES UP

The edition carried 26 different stories covering the event, plus nine pictures, drawings, and cartoons. The articles covered everything from technical details to speculation about future launches.

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

To illustrate the editors’ obsession with covering the event adequately, one of the paper’s articles was headed:

Florida Roach May Be On New Earth Satellite

It read, “Dr. Richard Porter, a top satellite scientist, was briefing reporters early today on the success of America’s first satellite, Explorer. One reporter wanted to know whether Explorer carried any living matter on the flight into outer space. ‘Not intentionally,’ Porter replied. ‘But maybe a Florida cockroach climbed aboard.’ ”

It was decided by the powers in Washington that our first satellite should be known as Explorer, and the less elegant name Deal passed into obscurity. Many project participants lamented the loss of the satisfyingly uncomplicated name, but the new name was quickly adopted. The Explorer name continued for many years to denote a class of relatively small Earth satellites that pioneered many advances in exploratory space science. Explorer 90 (also known as AIM) was launched on 25 April 2007.

Explorer I with its attached rocket stage was 80 inches in length, of which 34 inches comprised the satellite itself and 46 inches was the final rocket stage. Both the rocket stage and satellite payload were six inches in diameter. The total weight placed in orbit was 30.80 pounds, of which 10.63 pounds was the satellite instrument, 7.50 was its shell, and 12.67 pounds was the exhausted final rocket stage.

The initial orbit ranged from 221 miles height at perigee to 1583 miles at apogee, with an inclination relative to the Earth’s equator of 33.3 degrees. The initial orbital period was 114.7 minutes. The satellite reentered the Earth’s atmosphere on 31 March 1970.