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{{Use American English|date=February 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}

'''Project Orbiter''' was a proposed United States [[spacecraft]], an early competitor to [[Project Vanguard]]. It was jointly run by the [[United States Army]] and [[United States Navy]]. It was ultimately rejected by the Ad Hoc Committee on Special Capabilities, which selected Project Vanguard instead. Although the project was canceled on 3 August 1955, the basic design was used for the [[Juno I]] rocket which launched [[Explorer 1]], the first satellite launched by the United States.

== Proposal ==
In the 1920s and 1930s, the German [[Verein für Raumschiffahrt|Society for Space Travel]] (''Verein für Raumschiffahrt,'' referred to as ''VfR'' by its founders) began to gain in popularity, with membership growing from outside of [[Germany]] as well as within. The primary cause for the ''VfR's'' gaining worldwide appeal was due to the writings of mathematician [[Hermann Oberth]] who detailed, in a 1923 publication entitled ''The Rocket into Interplanetary Space'', the [[mechanics]] of placing a satellite into [[Earth]] [[orbit]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/ch1-3.htm|title=Part I, Chapter I, Section entitled: "The Highway to Space"|author1=Loyd S. Swenson Jr.|author2=James M. Grimwood|author3=Charles C. Alexander|work=This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury, pp. 13-18|year=1989|publisher=NASA|access-date=2009-05-27|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304054456/http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/ch1-3.htm|url-status=dead}} {{PD-notice}}</ref>

[[Herman Potočnik]] was the first to publish the concept of placing a [[geosynchronous satellite]] in [[geostationary orbit]], in 1928.<ref name='NASA SP-4026'>{{cite book|last=Noordung|first=Hermann|title=The Problem With Space Travel|publisher=DIANE Publishing|year=1995|page=72|isbn=978-0-7881-1849-4|orig-year=1929|others=Translation from original German}}</ref> [[Arthur C. Clarke]] popularized this concept even further in 1945, in a paper entitled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", published in ''[[Wireless World]]'' magazine.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=Arthur C. Clark |url=http://www.clarkefoundation.org/docs/ClarkeWirelessWorldArticle.pdf|title=Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?|date=October 1945|access-date=2009-03-04|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318000548/http://www.clarkefoundation.org/docs/ClarkeWirelessWorldArticle.pdf|archive-date=2009-03-18}}</ref> Clarke described the concept as useful for [[communications satellite]]s.

[[File:Proj orbiter 17mar54 dc 01.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|Project Orbiter committee, 17 March 1954]]

In 1954, [[Wernher von Braun]] proposed the idea of placing a [[satellite]] into orbit at a meeting of Spaceflight committee of the [[American Rocket Society]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Roger R.|last=Bate
|author2=Mueller, Donald D.|author3=White, Jerry E.|title=Fundamentals of Astrodynamics|publisher=Dover Publications|date=June 1, 1971|pages=[https://archive.org/details/fundamentalsofas00bate/page/152 152]
|isbn=0-486-60061-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/fundamentalsofas00bate/page/152}}</ref> His plan was to use a [[Redstone (rocket)|Redstone rocket]] with clusters of small [[solid-fuel rocket]]s on top.

Also in 1954, in a private discussion about the [[Redstone (rocket family)|Redstone]] project with [[Ernst Stuhlinger]], von Braun expressed his belief that they should have a "real, honest-to-goodness scientist" involved in their little unofficial satellite project (Project Orbiter). "I'm sure you know a scientist somewhere who would fill the bill, possibly in the Nobel Prize class, willing to work with us and to put some instruments on our satellite". Stuhlinger, himself a cosmic ray researcher at the [[University of Tübingen]] under his faculty advisor, [[Hans Geiger]], had worked with [[James Van Allen]] at [[White Sands Missile Range]] with [[V-2 rocket|V-2]] rockets, was ready with his reply: "Yes, of course, I will talk to Dr. Van Allen".

Stuhlinger followed this by a visit with Van Allen at his home in [[Princeton, New Jersey]], where Van Allen was on sabbatical leave from [[University of Iowa]] to work on [[stellarator]] design. Van Allen later recounted, "Stuhlinger's 1954 message was simple and eloquent. By virtue of ballistic missile developments at [[Army Ballistic Missile Agency]] (ABMA), it was realistic to expect that within a year or two a small scientific satellite could be propelled into a durable orbit around the Earth.[''sic''] ... I expressed a keen interest in performing a worldwide survey of the cosmic-ray intensity above the atmosphere".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/van90/ExplorerSatellites_LudwigOct2004.pdf|title=The First Explorer Satellites|author=George H. Ludwig|page=2|date=9 October 2004|access-date=10 July 2013}}</ref>

On 26 January 1956 at the Symposium on "The Scientific Uses of Earth Satellites" at the [[University of Michigan]], sponsored by the [[Upper Atmosphere Research Panel]], [[James Van Allen]] proposed the use of U.S. satellites for cosmic-ray investigations. [[Ernst Stuhlinger]], from von Braun's team noted this presentation and stayed in contact with Van Allen's Iowa Group. Through "preparedness and good fortune", van Allen later wrote, the experiment was selected as the principal payload ([[Explorer 1]]) for the first flight of a four-stage [[Juno I]] rocket on 1 February 1958 ([[Greenwich Mean Time|GMT]]).{{Needs citation|date=September 2024}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.spaceline.org/explorerchron.html Spaceline: Chronology Leading to Explorer 1]

[[Category:Proposed spacecraft]]
[[Category:Space program of the United States]]

Project Orbiter - Revision history

imported>Kikosays at 18:50, 11 September 2024