Explorer 1
On January 31, 1958, the first successful US satellite, Explorer 1 was launched. The striped half of the rocket that you see in the picture carried the payload and the other half was a solid fuel rocket motor. The launch of Explorer 1 was a huge triumph after the giant failure that occurred when the US tried to launch its first satellite in 1957, see First Vanguard Satellite. Explorer 1 was the second satellite in the world to carry a mission payload, Sputnik 2 being the first. It was a small satellite weighing only 30.80 pounds. Explorer 1 stopped transmitting data on May 23, 1958 when its batteries died, but continued its orbit around the earth for more than twelve years. When it finally stopped orbiting it reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on March 31, 1970 after going around the earth over 58,000 times.