The Smithsonian's Satellite-Tracking 

 Program: Its History and Organization 



PART 3 ' 



By E. Nelson Hayes 



Editor-in-chief, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 



The United States launched its first artificial earth satellite from 

 Cape Canaveral at 10 :48 p.m., eastern standard time, on January 31, 

 1958. The disappointment and frustration of the preceding months 

 lifted as the Jupiter-C Rocket thrust Satellite 1958 Alpha into an 

 orbit with apogee of 1,573 miles, perigee of 224 miles, and period of 

 114.8 minutes. The payload, weighing 30.8 pounds, carried experi- 

 ments to measure cosmic rays and upper atmospheric temperatures, 

 and to detect micrometeors. This first American satellite made pos- 

 sible one of the most important discoveries of the International Geo- 

 physical Year (IGY) — the existence of what is now known as the Van 

 Allen radiation belt. 



The worldwide Moonwatch network of the Smithsonian Astrophys- 

 ical Observatory was immediately alerted, and on February 2 teams 

 in Bryan, Tex., and Albuquerque, N. Mex., reported sightings of the 

 object. In the ensuing weeks, predictions were sent to those Baker- 

 Nunn camera installations that were in operation, and on March 18 

 the station in South Africa made the first photograph of 1958 Alpha ; 

 Japan followed with an observation on April 5, and the New Mexico 

 station made observations on April 11, 15, and 18. These obsei-vations 

 were in fulfillment of the Observatory's obligations to the IGY. 

 Those responsibilities were defined in a memorandum to Dr. Fred L. 

 Whipple, director of the Observatory, from Hugh Odishaw, executive 

 secretary of the U.S. Committee for the IGY. He specified that the 

 Observatory was to assume "responsibility for optical tracking of all 

 satellite bodies laimched by the U.S. that are not sending out radio 



1 Part 1 was published In the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1961, 

 pp. 275-322 ; Part 2 in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1963, pp. 

 331-357. 



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