New Moons Rising - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 14

aspirations alive within the Jupiter C rocket program, a successor to Redstone
that played a critical role in developing warheads capable of surviving reen-
try. 72 Jupiter C soared 682 miles in altitude at a speed of 12,800 miles per hour
for a distance of 3,355 miles on September 20, 1956, and could have placed a
satellite into orbit if its fourth stage had been filled with fuel rather than sand. 73
Pentagon officials suspected von Braun might try to leapfrog Vanguard, and
prior to launch they explicitly forbade Medaris from launching an unauthor-
ized satellite into orbit. Some in Huntsville became convinced that Eisenhower
wanted the Soviets to achieve orbit first.74 74
In late 1956 Vanguard director John P. Hagen and deputy director J. Paul
Walsh were set to visit Huntsville to discuss placing the Vanguard satellite
aboard an Army rocket. 75 Von Braun had made known he was not particular
about which satellite his rocket carried. As Roger Easton remembered the epi-
sode, Hagen was about to leave for the supposedly confidential trip when a
reporter called and asked if he was going to meet von Braun. A startled Hagen
told the reporter no and canceled the discussions.
Medaris and von Braun maintained their readiness to launch a satellite as
their warhead reentry program advanced. 76 Jupiter C achieved a milestone by
launching the first object into space that was recovered intact, when a nose
cone dropped by parachute into the Atlantic Ocean on August 8, 1957.
When the Army successfully launched America's first satellite, Explorer I,
into orbit on January 31, 1958, on the first try, it was not the result of a miracu-
lous 115-day crash program. Explorer I rode into orbit aboard a Jupiter C rocket
renamed Juno I to reflect its nonmilitary purpose. And it was no coincidence
that the satellite itself was not spherical but rather a bullet-shaped, eighty-
inch-long, six-inch-diameter cylinder—a fourth-stage rocket casing. More than
eighteen pounds of scientific instruments filled its upper half. 77 The gear
included a spare radio transmitter built by the Naval Research Laboratory for
use in a Vanguard satellite and scientific instruments provided by astrophysi-
cist James Van Allen of the University of Iowa. 78 His equipment was originally
slated for the Vanguard satellite, though it was also designed to it in a satellite
launched by von Braun's team. After Sputnik, it was officially transferred to
the Army's program, and Explorer I detected the radiation belts surrounding
Earth, which are named for Van Allen.
The lingering indignation over the Stewart Committee's decision is appar-
ent in remarks Medaris made on the twentieth anniversary of the Explorer
launch. Speaking to the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce