Vanguard 1 satellite

E15283

American spacecraft Earth satellite artificial satellite research satellite

Vanguard 1 satellite is an early American artificial Earth satellite launched in 1958 that became the fourth human-made object in space and the oldest still in orbit, used primarily for geophysical and atmospheric research.

Try in SPARQL Jump to: Surface forms Statements Referenced by

All labels observed (5)

Label	Occurrences
Vanguard 1	11
Vanguard 1 satellite canonical	3
Project Vanguard	1
Vanguard I	1
Vanguard satellites	1

Statements (52)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	American spacecraft ⓘ Earth satellite ⓘ artificial satellite ⓘ research satellite ⓘ
alsoKnownAs	1958 Beta 2 ⓘ Vanguard 1 satellite ⓘ surface form: Vanguard I
communicationStatus	no longer transmitting ⓘ
cosparId	1958-002B ⓘ
countryOfOrigin	United States of America ⓘ surface form: United States
diameter	16.5 centimeters ⓘ
dryMass	1.47 kilograms ⓘ
launchComplex	LC-18A ⓘ
launchDate	1958-03-17 ⓘ
launchSite	Cape Canaveral ⓘ surface form: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral ⓘ surface form: Cape Canaveral, Florida
launchVehicle	Vanguard TV-4 ⓘ
launchYear	1958 ⓘ
manufacturer	Naval Research Laboratory ⓘ
mass	1.47 kilograms ⓘ
notableFor	first satellite to use solar cells for power ⓘ fourth human-made object in space ⓘ oldest human-made satellite still in orbit ⓘ
nssdcId	1958-002B ⓘ
operator	Naval Research Laboratory ⓘ United States Navy ⓘ
orbitalPeriod	about 134 minutes ⓘ
orbitApogee	about 3,800 kilometers ⓘ
orbitInclination	about 34.25 degrees ⓘ
orbitPerigee	about 650 kilometers ⓘ
orbitType	low Earth orbit ⓘ
partOf	Vanguard 1 satellite self-linksurface differs ⓘ surface form: Project Vanguard
powerSource	batteries ⓘ solar cells ⓘ
precededBy	Explorer 1 ⓘ Sputnik 1 ⓘ Sputnik 2 ⓘ
program	Vanguard program ⓘ
purpose	atmospheric research ⓘ geophysical research ⓘ ionospheric research ⓘ measuring atmospheric drag ⓘ testing solar cell power in space ⓘ tracking Earth’s shape ⓘ
shape	sphere ⓘ
signalEndDate	1964 ⓘ
spacecraftBus	Vanguard series ⓘ
status	in orbit ⓘ
usedFor	mapping Earth’s gravitational field ⓘ refining Earth’s geodetic shape ⓘ studying upper atmosphere density ⓘ
usesCommunicationBand	108.00 MHz ⓘ 108.03 MHz ⓘ

How these facts were elicited

The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.

Instruction

You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10.

# Requirements
- If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list.
- If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list.
- Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf".
- Do not get too wordy.
- Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.

Input

Subject: Vanguard 1 satellite
Description of subject: Vanguard 1 satellite is an early American artificial Earth satellite launched in 1958 that became the fourth human-made object in space and the oldest still in orbit, used primarily for geophysical and atmospheric research.

Referenced by (17)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Naval Research Laboratory → developed → Vanguard 1 satellite ⓘ

Vanguard 1 satellite → partOf → Vanguard 1 satellite self-linksurface differs ⓘ

subject surface form: Vanguard 1

this entity surface form: Project Vanguard

Vanguard 1 satellite → alsoKnownAs → Vanguard 1 satellite ⓘ

subject surface form: Vanguard 1

this entity surface form: Vanguard I

Vanguard program → firstSuccessfulSatellite → Vanguard 1 satellite ⓘ