The Aerojet General X-8 was an unguided, spin-stabilized sounding rocket designed to launch a 150 lb (68 kg) payload to 200,000 feet (61.0 km).

[3][4][5] Towards the end of World War II, the US Army and the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had developed a meteorological sounding rocket, the WAC Corporal.

The Army determined that its Project Hermes would be extended to assemble and launch a number of the V-2s for military, technological and scientific purposes.

[15] The first Aerobees, the Navy RTV-N-8a1 and Army Signal Corps XASR-SC-1, used the Aerojet XASR-1 2,600 lbf (12 kN) thrust air-pressurized engine.

[29] After booster jettison, a 2,600 lbf (12 kN) thrust XASR-2 liquid fuel rocket burned for up to 40 seconds (depending on desired apogee).

[29][30] The X-8 recovery sequence was normally started as the rocket descended through about 200,000 ft (60,960.0 m) feet when the fins were blown off to induce a drag producing tumble.

USAF-1 was launched by an Air Force crew commanded by Major Phillip Calhoun, the Aerobee Project Officer, on 2 December 1949.

[34] USAF-1 reached an altitude of 59.7 miles (96.1 km) and carried three experiments; a Solar Radiation Soft X-Ray detector for the Air Force Cambridge Research Center, a Pressure-Temperature study for Boston University, and a Color Earth Photography experiment for the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Equipment Laboratory.

It carried a payload of Pressure-Temperature detectors for the University of Michigan, an Air Force Cambridge Center multipurpose beacon, 6 channel PPM-AM system, a Ten channel data recorder supplied by Tufts College, and a camera to photograph a Sperry aspect gyro for the University of Michigan.

Typical payloads were solar radiation, temperature, pressure, photography, sky brightness, atmosphere composition, winds, airglow, rocket performance, biological experiments, air density, day airglow, ionosphere, sodium studies, nitric oxide to produce a sporadic E layer, nitric oxide attempt to recombine atomic oxygen, sodium cloud ionization, solar spectrum and atmospheric composition.