Editing Project Vanguard (section)

=== The three services' proposals ===
Proposals to do this were presented by the [[United States Air Force]] (USAF), the [[United States Army]] (USA), and the [[United States Navy]] (USN). The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under Dr. [[Wernher von Braun]] had suggested using a modified [[Redstone (rocket)|Redstone rocket]] (see: [[Juno I]]) while the Air Force had proposed using the [[Atlas ICBM|Atlas launch vehicle]], which did not yet exist. The Navy proposed designing a [[rocket]] system based on the [[Viking rocket|Viking]] and [[Aerobee rocket]] systems.

The Air Force proposal was not seriously considered, as Atlas development was years behind the other vehicles. Among other limitations, the Army submission focused on the launch vehicle, while a payload was assumed to become available from the [[Jet Propulsion Laboratory]] (JPL), and the network of ground tracking stations was assumed to be a Navy project. The Navy proposal detailed all three aspects of the mission.<ref>Green & Lomask, 1970 ''loc cit'', Chapter 3</ref>