2 black-and-white photos of Vanguard at liftoff: - Lot 14

2 black-and-white photos of Vanguard at liftoff: - 1 from the launch of Vanguard TV-4 on February 5, 1958: the launch was a failure; the rocket fell into the sea 60 seconds into the flight following a control system malfunction. (21 x 25 cm). - 1 of the launch of Vanguard SLV-4 to place the Vanguard II satellite into orbit on February 17, 1959, with the goal of studying Earth’s environment. The satellite operated for 26 days. Photo captioned on the back, No. 8P-63171. (21 × 25 cm). Vanguard was a small American launch vehicle developed by the NRL (Naval Research Laboratory), whose objective was to place the first artificial satellite into orbit. However, 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, launched 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.