Pictured above is an animation of the Explorer orbiting Earth and a scale model of the
satellite being held up by (left to right) William Pickering, James Von Allen, and Wernher 
Von Braun. 

Explorer 1  was the first Earth satellite of the United States, launched as part of its participation in an international scientific project. The mission followed the first two
Earth satellites the previous year, the Soviet Union’s Sputnic l and 2, beginning the
Cold War Space Race between the two nations.

Explorer 1 was launched  atop the first Juno booster from at the Cape Canaveral, Florida. It returned data until its batteries were exhausted after nearly four months. It remained in orbit until 1970.

Apollo 1 (official designation Apollo/Saturn-204) was planned to be the first manned mission of the Apollo lunar landing program, set to launch in February 1967. Its flight was precluded by a fatal fire which killed all three crew members (Command Pilot Virgil “Guss” Grissom (center), Senior Pilot Edward H. White (left), and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee (right), and destroyed the Command Module cabin(pictured below). This occurred during a pre-launch test of the spacecraft on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral. The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was officially assigned retroactively in commemoration of them.  

             
                              Charred remains of the Apollo 1 command module

RCA’s project SCORE (signal communications orbit relay equipment)
was the world’s first communications satellite. An Air Force Atlas  
inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched the satellite from
Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first voice broadcast from SCORE
was a message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, shown in
the above photo.