First Explorer (APOD 12 Aug 2006)

[hopeless ro]

Question...snybody know what the "UE" stood for on the side of the rocket?

[harry]

Hello Hopless ro

I think it stands for United states Explorer

[Dr. Skeptic]

The Explorer rockets were launched pre-NASA. The "Army Ballistic Missile Agency" supplied the launch hardware, I think it designated the "class" of rocket. Try looking there.

[orin stepanek]

I couldn't find what the UE stood for. But the rocket was a Jupiter C a direct descendant of the German V-2. Here are links.


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060812.html

http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/expinfo.html

Orin

[DavidLeodis]

Hi hopeless ro.

I also wondered what UE stood for. From a search I came across a webpage in the 'Spaceline - Covering the Past, Present and Future of Cape Canaveral' website that had a JUNO 1 Fact Sheet. In this it stated:-

"Following scrubs on January 29 and January 30, a Juno I bearing the letters "UE" (Redstone #29; see Jupiter C) successfully launched Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite. The Juno I was launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad 26A at 10:48 p.m. EST on January 31, 1958.

This was followed by five more Juno I satellite launch attempts. A Juno I bearing the letters "UV" (Redstone #26) was launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad 26A on March 5, 1958. The fourth stage failed to fire in this unsuccessful attempt to launch Explorer II.

A Juno I bearing the letters "UT" (Redstone #24) was launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad 5 on March 26, 1958. This Juno I successfully carried Explorer III into orbit. A Juno I bearing the letters "TT" (Redstone #44) launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad 5 on July 26, 1958 successfully carried Explorer IV into orbit.

The last two Juno I launches were failures. A Juno I bearing the letters "TI" (Redstone #47) launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad 5 on August 24, 1958 failed to carry Explorer V into orbit when the Redstone booster bumped the upper stages, sending them out of control.

Finally, a Juno I bearing the letters "HE" (Redstone #49 should have been lettered "TE" according to code, but "HE" was used instead) was launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad 5 on October 22, 1958. The upper stage clusters broke off in an unsuccessful attempt to deploy the Beacon I balloon-type satellite.".

That does not tell us what for example UE stood for (and I have still to find out) but it seems that the letters (usually) were a code for the order that the modified Redstone ballistic missile were used for launches.

I hope that helps.

[hopeless ro]

Thank you all for your input...so much to check out now. Very interesting the history of rockets....even fictional ones!