Canada was the fourth country to operate a satellite, as the British Ariel 1, constructed in the United States by NASA, preceded Alouette 1 by five months.

A key device on Alouette were the radio antennas consisting of thin strips of beryllium copper bent into a slight U-shape and then rolled up into small disks in a fashion similar to a measuring tape.

When triggered, the rotation of the satellite created enough centrifugal force to pull the disk away from the spacecraft body, and the shaping of the metal caused it to unwind into a long spiral.

[8] NASA was convinced to participate by the prospect of obtaining data on the ionosphere, and Canada had the additional objective of developing its own space research programme.

The batteries used for Alouette were developed by the Defence Chemical, Biological, and Radiation Laboratory (DCBRL), another branch of DRB, and were partially responsible for the long lifetime of the satellite.

[17] Companies such as RCA Victor and Spar Aerospace Limited produced some of their first pieces of space equipment for the Alouette 1 project.

[19] Alouette 1 was launched via Thor-Agena-B two-stage rocket[20] by NASA from the Pacific Missile Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA at 06:05 UTC on September 29, 1962, into orbit around Earth.

Another article, titled "Anthropogenic Space Weather",[26] indicates Alouette 1 sustained no significant adverse effects from the Starfish radiation, most likely due to a very conservative power supply design that allowed for a 40% degradation of solar cell performance.