- Family: Vanguard
- Length: 23 m
- Diameter: 1.14 m
- Launch Mass: 10 T
- Low Earth Orbit Capacity: 9 kg
The Vanguard was manufactured by Lockheed Martin with the first launch on 1957-10-23. Vanguard has 3 successful launches and 8 failed launches with a total of 11 launches. The Vanguard rocket was intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a Juno I rocket, making Vanguard I the second successful U.S. orbital launch.
