Galleries
Visual Images — whether photos, videos or artists' representations — deliver rockets and spacecraft, our own planet and distant stars from imagination into reality. The still and video galleries here chart the development and launch of Explorer 1, as well as the achievements of science in space over the past six decades.
Explorer 1 Images
Explorer 1 Space Images
Video
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The Big Picture
In this collection of newsreels, documentaries and other video, watch the actual countdown and launch, as well as interviews with William Pickering, Wernher von Braun, James Van Allen and other key figures in the development of Explorer 1 and America’s entry into the Space Age.
History
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Anniversary Events
Around the U.S., people gathered to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Explorer 1’s launch, some reminiscing about the historic day, others looking forward to the promise of future explorations. See photos and video from events in Washington, D.C., the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
JPL Director Michael Watkins; Susan G. Finley, who joined JPL as a human computer two days before Explorer 1 launched and still works there as a subsystem engineer for the Deep Space Network; and NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen (left-right) recreate the famous Explorer 1 photo with an original model of the satellite ― and a little help from David Dworkin and Stephanie Stewart of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, who are the only ones actually handling the historic artifact.NASEM/Kevin Allen
