 The September 1956 test launch of a Jupiter-C for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency could have been the world's first satellite launch.Had a fourth stage been loaded and fueled, the nose cone would have overshot the target and entered orbit.Such a launch did not occur until early 1958 when a Juno 1 successfully launched the first United States satellite, Explorer 1 after the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 in October 1957.