FAILURE OF SATELLITE Fourth Stage Did Not Fife

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28531, 10 March 1958, Page 6

FAILURE OF SATELLITE Fourth Stage Did Not Fife

Press WASHINGTON, March 6. Explorer 11, intended as a second United States satellite, did not go into orbit yesterday, it was announced today. \ A statement said: “Th£ reason for the failure of the automatic ignition system to ignite the last stage, after all previous stages had functioned perfectly,**- is not known and will probably be very difficult to determine. “Lacking the additional velocity which would have been contributed by the last stage, the satellite behaved as an ordinary surface-to-surface missile, and since it was not protected against re-entry heat conditions, probably burned up on re-entering the atmosphere at a range of approximately 1900 miles.” The’ statement also ruled out all other possibilities such as a failure of the satellite's radios. The statement, released jointly by the Army, the Jet Propvision Laboratories at Washington, Pasadena, and Cape Canaveral, came more than 24 hours after the Jupiter C rocket carrying the satellite had been launched.

Earlier a statement by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena had said that the failure of the last stage high-speed rocket had apparently caused Explorer II to go awry after reaching orbital altitude.