Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed-Martin), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket, powered by a basic design for large liquid rockets.

[2] Three hundred rail-car loads of V-2 rocket weapons and parts were captured and shipped to the United States, also 126 of the principal designers of the V-2, including Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger, went to America.

Thus started the Space Race, that gave the drive to put men on the Moon with the Apollo program.

[13] In October 1956, Viking 13, refurbished and renamed Vanguard Test Vehicle-Zero, or TV-0, arrived at Cape Canaveral.

A Viking launch stand was shipped from White Sands Missile Range for use at the Cape Canaveral.

Shortly after two minutes after lift off a small telemetry antennas unrolled from the rocket transmitting an oscillator's beep.

The beep was picked up at the Air Force Missile Test Center's (AFMTC) tracking station.