1 photo, 20x25 cm, of the very first “Pamplemousse”—the Vang - Lot 1

1 photo, 20x25 cm, of the very first “Pamplemousse”—the Vanguard TV3 satellite—on the ground after its rocket exploded and crashed, with the engine shutting down after 2 seconds, on December 6, 1957. Vanguard was a small American launch vehicle developed by the NRL (Naval Research Laboratory), whose goal was to place the first artificial satellite into orbit. But after 9 failures out of 12 launches between 1956 and 1959, the Juno 1 launch vehicle was tasked with launching the first satellite into orbit—Explorer 1—on February 1, 1958, without calling the Vanguard program into question. On March 17, 1958, Vanguard finally achieved success with Vanguard 1, which became the second American satellite in orbit. All photos are from the archives of the public relations department of the Martin Company in Baltimore (which later became Martin-Marietta and then Lockheed-Martin). All documents are original Martin documents and are in black and white.