Two days before Pioneer IV's successful takeoff, the Air Force launched its first Discoverer satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Discoverer was the U.S.'s first attempt to put a satellite into polar orbit, which would make possible surveillance of the whole of the earth's surface. The booster, a
Thor ICBM, and the second stage, a 19-ft. liquid-fuel job built by Lockheed, apparently worked well. Watchers assumed that the bird, which consisted of the 1,300-lb. second stage with a 40-lb. instrument payload, had gone into orbit over the South Pacific.
But something went...
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