It was the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency, headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, that first put America into space. Using a modified Jupiter-C rocket, the Army team, headed by Wernher von Braun, launched the Explorer 1 satellite into orbit on January 31, 1958. With this launch, America was finally able to match the Soviet Unions stunning achievement, demonstrated twice within the previous three months, of placing an artificial satellite into orbit.

The Soviets had surprised the world, and scored a significant public relations victory, with the launch of the worlds first satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957. The Eisenhower Administration refused to bend to public and political pressure to mount a crash program in response to Sputnik. Instead, the Administration stuck with a plan already in place for the Navy to take America into space on the shoulders of the Vanguard launch vehicle.

Von Braun had always believed his Army team could have beaten the Soviets into space had they been allowed to fully develop his plans. Following a briefing with senior Department of Defense officials on the day after Sputnik 1, von Braun boasted that his team could be ready for launch within 60 days. His military boss, General John B. Medaris, was not quite as confident and suggested that 30 days should be added to von Brauns ambitious estimate.

Not to be deterred, von Braun told Pentagon officials, "When you get back to Washington and all hell breaks loose, tell them weve got the hardware down here to put up a satellite any time." Despite these assurances, approval to proceed was slow in coming.

A month after Sputnik 1, the Russians were back on the front pages of the world press with another successful satellite in orbit. Sputnik 2 outweighed its predecessor by almost 1,000 pounds, and even carried a passenger -- a mixed breed dog named Laika.

Public reaction was again swift and angry. With not one, but two successful launches by our Cold War competitors, the visions of Wernher von Braun were suddenly much in demand. Life magazine put him on the cover of the November 18, 1957, issue. Referring to him as "The Seer of Space," Life noted that Washington should have listened to him months earlier when had warned about what the Russians were up to, instead of dismissing his remarks "as if made by a tiresome crackpot."

With the Vanguard program facing technical difficulties and still at least a month away from launch, von Braun was finally given permission to proceed. It was a good thing too. On December 6, the Navy punched the control button to launch the Vanguard rocket. However, two seconds after liftoff, and less than five feet off the pad, the rockets shut down fuels tanks ruptured and the vehicle was consumed in an explosion that sent technicians in the blockhouse diving for cover.

Von Braun ended up needing less than the 90 days predicted by General Medaris. Most of the 84 days that were actually required were needed to prepare the Explorer 1 satellite and not the rocket. The whole point of the launch exercise was to deploy a "scientifically useful" payload into orbit that would provide data for studies underway as part of the International Geophysical Year research activities.

The satellite was built and developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, under the leadership of William Pickering. James Van Allen, a physicist of the State University of Iowa, and his graduate student, Wei Ching Lin, developed the scientific instruments carried in the satellite a set of cosmic ray Geiger counters.

Von Braun was not on hand at the Air Force Missile and Test Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the actual launch. Along with Pickering and Van Allen, he had been directed to standby at the Pentagon. In the event of a successful launch, the Army wanted the trio readily available to meet with the national press.

By January 29, 1958, the vehicle was on the pad and ready for launch, but strong winds at high altitudes led to a scrubbed mission. An attempt the next day brought similar results. Finally, on January 31 at 11:45 p.m., the four-stage rocket lifted off the pad and roared into space.

Though confident that the launch was a success, von Braun waited for an hour and a half before he declared victory. When a West Coast tracking station confirmed that Explorer 1 was indeed in orbit, the United States finally had something to celebrate.

Launching 18 pounds (8.2 kilograms) of scientific instruments may not have been as impressive to some as the deployment of 1,200-pound Soviet satellite carrying a dog. However, as it turned out, the instruments designed by Van Allen discovered a zone of radiation around the planet. This discovery, now known as the Van Allen belt, is recognized as the greatest scientific contribution to the International Geophysical Year investigations.

Six months later, the Eisenhower Administration announced that the development of America's space program would be led by a new civilian agency. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officially opened its doors on October 8, 1958 to lead this effort. In March 1960, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency was transferred to NASA and became the Marshall Space Flight Center. Wernher von Braun was named as the center's first director. For the past 40 years, the Marshall Space Flight Center has been charged with advancing rocket research to carry humanity's aspirations beyond Earths orbit.