Everything about Vanguard Tv3 totally explained
Vanguard TV3 was the first attempt of the
United States to launch a
satellite into
orbit around the
Earth. It was a small satellite designed to test the launch capabilities of the three-stage
Vanguard rocket and study the effects of the environment on a satellite and its systems in
Earth orbit. It was also to be used to obtain
geodetic measurements through orbit analysis.
At its launch attempt on
December 6,
1957 at
Cape Canaveral, the
booster ignited and began to rise but about 2 seconds after liftoff, after rising about four feet (1.2 m), the rocket lost thrust and began to settle back down to the launch pad. As it settled against the launch pad the fuel tanks ruptured and exploded, destroying the rocket and severely damaging the launch pad. The Vanguard satellite was thrown clear and landed on the ground a short distance away with its transmitters still sending out a beacon signal. The satellite was damaged, however, and couldn't be reused. It is now on display at the
National Air and Space Museum of the
Smithsonian Institution.
but the commonly accepted explanation is that low fuel tank pressure during the start procedure allowed some of the burning fuel in the
combustion chamber to leak into the fuel system through the injector head before full propellant pressure was obtained from the turbo pump.
Satellite design
The payload was a 1.36 kg
aluminum sphere 152 mm in diameter, nearly identical to the later
Vanguard 1. It contained a 10 mW, 108 MHz mercury-battery powered transmitter and a 5 mW, 108.03 MHz transmitter powered by six
solar cells mounted on the body of the satellite. Six short aerials protruded from the sphere. The transmitters were used primarily for engineering and tracking data, but were also used to determine the total electron content between the satellite and ground stations. Vanguard also carried two thermistors to measure the interior temperatures in order to track the effectiveness of the thermal protection.
Press
The big newspapers had a field day in headlines. There were numerous plays on the Russian
Sputnik, such as "Flopnik",
"Kaputnik"
and "Stayputnik".
Further Information
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