At the end of the second world war the US Army was able to collect several specimens of the German V-2 missiles. Once assembled in the US these missiles were used in several test flights during which they carried in the high atmosphere some different scientifical instruments to study the Sun, the Earth's atmosphere and cosmic rays.
During one of the preliminary meetings of the scientific mission planning panel, the physic and astronomer Fritz Zwicky proposed to use a V-2 to launch some small grenades at very high altitude designed to simulate the behaviour of meteors by disintegrating in the atmosphere. This experiment was to provide an artificial reference for calibration of natural meteor observation and to provide data on hypersonic aerodynamics and the conditions of the high atmosphere. Zwicky did find the support of astronomer Fred Whipple, who was carrying a photographic survey of meteor showers to compute their mean orbits.
In a short while the project was approved and a separation system for three grenades was quickly prepared for a first launch near the end of 1946.
On December 17, 1946 everything was ready: the German missile was to lift off from White Sands, New Mexico during the night and was to be followed by no less than 30 cameras troughout the southwestern states, from Albuquerque to Tucson, Flagstaff and mount Palomar, California, where the 46 cm diameter Schmidt camera was to track the flight.
Unfortunately, no meteor was observed as the V-2 exploded 440 seconds after lift off.

After several more failed tests, success came on October 16, 1957, just twelve days after the launch of the first artificial satellite. The technical details of the test were quite different from the one of 1946. The last V-2 had finally retired to the museums after being replaced by several models of sounding rockets. The rocket used for this test was an Aerobee, a small unguided rocket able to carry a payload of up to 135 kg to an altitude of as much of 220 km. The payload was different also: instead of three grenades the Aerobee rocket carried inside a separable nosecone three centimeter sized alluminium spheres each buried in a shaped charge of explosive able to give it a speed of 14.75 km/s.
On October 16, 1957, the Aerobee rocket was launched by the US Air Force from White Sands. On reaching an altitude of 56 km the nosecone was separated and upon reaching an altitude of 87 km the charges were triggered producing a -10 visual magnitude flash seen as far as mount Palomar, 1000 km away. In the same images which recorded the flash of the explosion the trail of a -2 visual magnitude meteor, clearly caused by the atmospheric entry of one of the spheres was recorded. The other two spheres were not recorded by any observer and it is possible that, if they were deployed in a correct attitde and having a speed much greater than Earth escape speed (about 11 km/s), they entered a solar orbit, thus becoming the first artificial "planets".

Bibliography
De Vorkin, Science with a Vengeance, New York, Springer, pp. 276-278
Miller J.: The X Planes: X-1 to X-31, Arlington, Aerofax
USAF Launched Artificial Meteors, Aviation Week, December 2, 1957, p. 34
Meteore Artificiali, Coelum, July-August 1958, p. 123 (in Italian)

Related Links
S. M. Maurer: Idea Man (PDF File). This article include a picture of the October 16, 1957 artificial meteor
NASM Space Artifacts: Aerobee 350
White Sands Missile Range Missile Park: Aerobee

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