On March 19, 1964, NASA unsuccessfully attempted to launch a satellite named Beacon Explorer-A On a mission to study Ionosphere did
The ionosphere is a region in the Earth’s upper atmosphere where solar radiation separates electrons from atoms and molecules, creating a layer of free ions and electrons.
Beacon Explorer-A was supposed to count all those free electrons using a radio beacon, but it never reached orbit after launch.
After a smooth lift-off from the launch site in Florida, a problem occurred with the third stage of the Delta rocket. The third fuel was supposed to last 40 seconds, but the engines cut out after 22 seconds. The satellite re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere somewhere over the South Atlantic Ocean and was destroyed by burning up in the atmosphere.
