Vanguard TV1

Vanguard TV-1, also called Vanguard Test Vehicle-One, was the second sub-orbital test flight of a Vanguard rocket as part of the Project Vanguard. TV-1 followed the successful launch of Vanguard TV-0 a one-stage rocket launched in December 1956.

The launch of the Vanguard TV-1 rocket.

Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed-Martin), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket [1] as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida.

Vanguard TV-1 arrived at Cape Canaveral in February 1957. TV-1 was a two-stage rocket. Vanguard TV-1 used a liquid rocket booster from a modified Viking rocket for the first stage. The second stage was made by Grand Central Rocket Company. The second stage was a prototype solid-propellant rocket. This solid-propellant second stage later became the third stage of the finial three-stage Vanguard vehicle. Three stages are needed to put a satellite in orbit, the goal of Vanguard.

Vanguard TV-1 lifted off on 1 May 1957 at 01:29 from Cape Canaveral from launch pad 18A. Launch pad 18A was an older Viking launch stand that was shipped from White Sands Missile Range for use at the Cape Canaveral. Pad 18A was also used on Vanguard Test Vehicle-Zero.

The main goal of Vanguard TV-1 was to test the solid-propellant rocket. The solid-propellant rocket needed to spin-up, separate from the first-stage booster, ignite, provide a proper propulsion and trajectory. Another goal was to test the techniques and equipment used to launch and track the rocket. The telemetry received during flight would record the proper propulsion and trajectory. The telemetry was picked up at the Air Force Missile Test Center's (AFMTC) tracking station.

Vanguard TV-1 was successful, the two stage rocket achieved an altitude of 195 km (121 mi) and a down range of 726 km (451 mi), landing in the Atlantic Ocean.[2][3][4][5][6] With Vanguard TV-0 and Vanguard TV-1 success, the next sub-orbital test flight, Vanguard TV-2, was launched on 23 October 1957.

Background

Vanguard TV-0 and Vanguard TV-1 success was an important part of the space race. The space race started between United States and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, as a race began to retrieve as many V-2 rockets and Nazi Germany V-2 staff as possible.[7] Three hundred rail-car loads of V-2 rocket weapons and parts were captured and shipped to the United States, also 126 of the principal designers of the V-2, including Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger, went to America. Von Braun, his brother Magnus von Braun, and seven others decided to surrender to the United States military in Operation Paperclip to ensure they were not captured by the advancing Soviets or shot dead by the Nazis to prevent their capture.[8] Thus the V-2 program started the space race, the V-2 could not orbit, but could reach a height of 88 km (55 mi) on long range trajectory and up to 206 km (128 mi) if launched vertically.[9][10][11]

Due to later problems with Vanguard it was not the first rocket to put into orbit an unmanned satellite. The first small-lift launch vehicle was the Sputnik rocket, it put into orbit an unmanned orbital carrier rocket designed by Sergei Korolev in the Soviet Union, derived from the R-7 Semyorka ICBM. On 4 October 1957, the Sputnik rocket was used to perform the world's first satellite launch, placing Sputnik 1 satellite into a low Earth orbit.[12][13][14] The USA responded by launching the Vanguard rocket,[1][15] that was intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV-3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a Juno I rocket launched on 1 February 1958. Thus Vanguard I was the second successful U.S. orbital launch. Thus started the space race, that gave the drive to put men on the Moon with the USA's Apollo program.[16][17]

See also

References
  1. "The Vanguard Satellite Launching Vehicle — An Engineering Summary". B. Klawans. April 1960, 212 pages. Martin Company Engineering Report No 11022, PDF of an optical copy.
  2. "NASA History, Chapter 10". history.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
  3. Project Vanguard: The NASA History, By Constance McLaughlin Green, Milton Lomask
  4. "U.S. space-rocket liquid propellant engines". www.b14643.de. Archived from the original on 2015-11-01. Retrieved 2015-06-24.
  5. Winter, Frank H. (1990). "3 — Rockets Enter the Space Age". Rockets Into Space. Harvard University Press. p. 66. Retrieved 2015-06-24.
  6. Project Vanguard: The NASA History, page 282, By Constance McLaughlin Green and Milton Lomask
  7. "We Want with the West", Time Magazine, 9 December 1946.
  8. "Wernher von Braun". Retrieved 2009-07-04.
  9. "Bumper Project". White Sands History - Fact Sheets and Articles. US Army. Archived from the original on 2008-01-10. Retrieved 2007-12-02.
  10. 'Long-range' in the context of the time. See NASA history article. Archived 2009-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
  11. Neufeld, Michael J (1995). The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era. New York: The Free Press. pp. 158, 160–2, 190.
  12. "NASA - NSSDC - Spacecraft - Details – Sputnik 1". nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
  13. "Sputnik launch vehicle 8K71PS (M1-1PS)". russianspaceweb.com. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
  14. (in Russian) Sputnik Rocket
  15. "Vanguard Project - U.S. Naval Research Laboratory". nrl.navy.mil. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
  16. Kennedy, John F. (April 20, 1961). "Memorandum for Vice President". The White House (Memorandum). Boston, MA: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
  17. Launius, Roger D. (July 1994). "President John F. Kennedy Memo for Vice President, 20 April 1961" (PDF). Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis (PDF). Monographs in Aerospace History Number 3. Washington, D.C.: NASA. OCLC 31825096. Retrieved 2013-08-01. Key Apollo Source Documents.

Further reading
  • Mallove, Eugene F. and Matloff, Gregory L. The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel, Wiley. ISBN 0-471-61912-4.
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