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Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States when it was sent into orbit on January 31, 1958. It was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of Technology. The satellite was sent aloft from Cape Canaveral in Florida by the Jupiter C rocket that was designed, built, and launched by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under the direction of Dr. Werner Von Braun
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The Soviet craft Sputnik 5 was launched, carrying the dogs Strelka and Belka. They became the first living beings to survive a trip into space.
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(Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1, but Voyager 1 was on a faster trajectory.)
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An investigative panel found that superheated air almost certainly seeped through a breach in space shuttle Columbia’s left wing and possibly its wheel compartment during the craft’s fiery descent, resulting in the deaths of all seven astronauts.
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NASA launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, also known as LCROSS. The mission is to confirm the presence or absence of ice on the moon. On November 13, 2009, NASA scientists announced the discovery of a "significant amount" of ice in a crater near the moon’s South Pole.
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