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Explorer 1, the first American satellite, launched January 31, 1958. Explorer 1 discovered the Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth. These radiation belts are a dominant source of background noise in X-ray detectors.
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The ASE-MIT experiment payload launched 1 minute before midnight on 18 June 1962 using a USAF Areobee 150 rocket. This rocket was above 80 km for a total of 5 min and 50 sec, and reached a maximum altitude of 225 Km. As the spinning rocket climbed above 80 km the doors opened and discovered the first evidence for cosmic X-ray radiation from beyond our solar system. This flight discovered Sco X-1, the brightest X-ray source in the sky and now known to be an X-ray binary system. The flight also discovered an intense X-ray background, which is now believed to be the superposition of many fainter extragalactic sources known as active galactic nuclei (AGN).
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The Aerobee 150 Payload
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