Word: orbitals
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...gyroscopically controlled device turned the missile's attitude toward the horizontal by blowing jets of compressed air through nozzles. This process took about 240 seconds. By that time the bird was at the peak of its first-stage flight, and pointing in the direction of its intended orbit...
...while, it was being tracked from the ground in four different electronic ways, and Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, German-born rocket expert, was waiting for a complicated instrumental setup to tell him the exact time to ignite the second stage and "inject" the satellite into its orbit. When the shortened assembly reached about 200 miles altitude and was pointing in the right direction, he pressed a button...
That was it. Everything worked perfectly without the slightest hitch, and the first U.S. satellite was in orbit...
Southerly Swing. Unlike the Russian Sputniks, which sweep close to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, the Explorer follows a sinuous orbit around the earth's middle, crossing the equator at an angle of about 34° and coming only as far north as Atlanta. At its highest point (apogee), the orbit rises to 1,700 miles above the earth, descending to about 200 miles (perigee). The round trip takes 114 minutes. This is a "safe" orbit, above nearly all the drag of the atmosphere, and higher than the orbits of the Russian satellites...
...William H. Pickering, director of the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which developed the upper stages of the launching vehicle, says that the orbit is almost exactly the intended one. The only deviation is that the satellite goes a little higher than was expected. "A splendid orbit," says Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, who designed the instrument package for the satellite. "We are delighted with it." He points out that the principal scientific purpose of the Explorer is to study cosmic rays at various distances from the earth, and it could...