The base of the jovial groove as the little group walked was a lilting, repeating riff on the kora, the 21-string harp-lute that a musician played with its base propped against his torso, plucking with his thumbs. â
The Vanguard team was still working on a test vehicle (TV-2) designed to test the first stage of the rocket when they learned of the launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, by the USSR on October 4, 1957. On December 2, the Department of Defense announced the imminent launch of TV-3.
On 2 July 1959, a launch of a Soviet R2 rocket, which reached 212 kilometers (132 mi), carried two space dogs and Marfusa, the first rabbit to go into space. A 19 September 1959 launch, Jupiter AM-23, carried 2 frogs along with 12 mice but the rocket was destroyed during launch.