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Research inNASA History

National Aeronautics andSpace Administration

NASA History Office

Top Image:

This photograph is of a model of

Explorer I,

the first spacecraft launched into Earth orbit by theUnited States. The 18-pound scientific satellite was launched on January 31, 1958, by the Army Ballistic MissileAgency and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Explorer I

discovered the Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth.

NASA Photo # 58 Explorer 1-2.

Background Image:

This dramatic view of the universe is called the Hubble Deep Field and was assembledfrom several hundred separate images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Only about 25 percent of theentire Hubble Deep Field is shown here, covering a slice of the sky only 1/30th the diameter of the Moon.Several hundred newly seen galaxies are visible in this 1996 image.

Space Telescope Science Institute Photo # STSCI-PRC-96-01a.

Lower Image:

A bevy of NACA/NASA experimental aircraft (“X-planes”) at the Dryden Flight Research Center(then called the NACA High Speed Flight Station) in Edwards, California, from 1947 to 1958. Counterclockwisefrom the lower left: the Bell X-1A, the Douglas D-558-1 “Skystreak,” the Convair XF-92A, the Bell X-5, the rock-et/turbojet Douglas D-558-2, and the Northrop X-4 semi-tailless turbojet. The center aircraft is the turbojetDouglas X-3.

NASA Photo # E-2889.