The base of the jovial groove as the little group walked was a lilting, repeating riff on the kora, the 21-string harp-lute that a musician played with its base propped against his torso, plucking with his thumbs. â
The Vanguard team was still working on a test vehicle (TV-2) designed to test the first stage of the rocket when they learned of the launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, by the USSR on October 4, 1957. On December 2, the Department of Defense announced the imminent launch of TV-3.
A version of the Redstone rocket, known as the Jupiter C, on January 31, 1958, was used to launch America's first satellite, Explorer I. Three years later, Mercury Redstones launched Alan Sheppard and Gus Grissom on suborbital space flights, paving the way for John Glenn's first orbital flight.