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.
The Vanguard field crew was still struggling at Cape Canaveral to put up TV-2, its third test vehicle-the one designed to test the first stage, when on Friday, 4 October 1957, the news broke that Sputnik I, a 184-pound sphere had been launched about 5:30 p.m. that day by the Soviet Union and was circling the earth.