[FPSPACE] Four big space anniversaries for January 31, 2001

[Chris Jones]

Larry Klaes <lklaes@bbn.com> writes:

  Some big events in the history of space exploration took
  place on the last day of the month of January:

[...]

  Though this anniversary does not end in a zero or five, I
  feel it should be noted that on January 31 in the year 1958, 
  the USA successfully launched its first satellite into Earth 
  orbit, with the appropriate name of Explorer 1.

I always learned that 31 January was the date, too, but it's interesting to
note that 10:47:56 EST was 1 February GMT, which is sort of the "official"
date.  It may even have been 1 Feb local time when Explorer 1 went into orbit 7
min after launch, depending on how far east it was from its launch site.
Certainly it was after midnight on the US east coast when orbit was confirmed.

Not that all this matters, but if you see a 1 February date for Explorer 1,
this is probably why.