Pioneer satellites (1957) : 'they're up there...'
Early in October 1957 communications stations started picking up a regular beeping noise coming from space.
The signals were coming from Russia's Sputnik 1, the world's first man-made satellite. The launch of Sputnik caused a panic in Washington, as the USA realised how far it had fallen behind in the space race. The worries deepened three months later, when a Vanguard rocket with America's first satellite exploded two seconds after ignition.
It was January 1958 before a Jupiter rocket successfully launched Explorer 1, the first American satellite.