During the 1950s, under the shadow of the cold war, the space race was being fought out. When the Russians successfully launched the first satellite, Sputnik into orbit, the USA was determined to follow up with their own satellite.
In March 1958, the first United States satellite, known as Vanguard I was launched. Being roughly the size and shape of a grapefruit, this small metal ball might not seem like much, but today, it is still in orbit around the Earth, making it the oldest man-made object that is in orbit.
As if the fact that this early satellite is still in orbit since the 1950s is still impressive is not impressive enough, as well as the fact that it is predicted to remain in orbit of earth for hundreds more years if not thousands, is also the fact that this is the first spacecraft to use solar powered technology.
Solar technology is seen nowadays as the future of power for the planet – using solar panels to harness the energy that is given off by the sun we are able to power our homes in a more environmentally friendly way. More and more people are now going to companies like this solar panels Cheltenham based company gsmlimited.com/services/solar-panels/Cheltenham to have their homes powered by this technology.
We might consider this to be modern and relatively recent, but Vanguard is one of the early pioneers of using the power of the sun, and its own solar array continued to run and transmit data back to Earth for around six years before shutting down!