Project Orbiter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Project Orbiter was a proposed United States spacecraft, an early competitor to Project Vanguard. It was jointly run by the United States Army and United States Navy. It was ultimately rejected by the Ad Hoc Committee on Special Capabilities, which selected proceeding with Vanguard instead. Although the project was canceled on August 3, 1955, the basic design was used for the Juno I rocket which launched Explorer 1, the first satellite launched by the United States.

[edit] Proposal

Wernher von Braun proposed the idea of placing a satellite into orbit in 1954, at a meeting of Spaceflight committee of the American Rocket Society.^[1] His plan was to use a Redstone rocket with clusters of small solid-fuel rockets on top.

[edit] References

^ Bate, Roger R.; Mueller, Donald D.; White, Jerry E. (June 1, 1971). Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. Dover Publications, p. 152. ISBN 0486600610.

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)