Editing Army Ballistic Missile Agency (section)

=== Jupiter-C ===
While development of the Jupiter missile was underway, design of the [[reentry vehicle]] was progressing rapidly. In order to gain test data on the design before the missile would be ready to launch it, ABMA designed the [[Jupiter-C]], short for "Jupiter Composite Test Vehicle". This was not really a Jupiter at all, but a Redstone with an {{cvt|2.4|m}} stretch to hold more fuel, topped with two upper stages consisting of clusters of small solid fuel rockets, topped by a subscale version of the Jupiter reentry vehicle.{{sfn|Kyle|2011|loc=Testing Jupiter, Jupiter-C}}

The bare Jupiter-C flew for the first time on 20 September 1956, flying further and faster than any previous rocket. The complete system with a dummy reentry vehicle flew twice in 1957, the first on 15 May and the second on 8 August 1957. The second of these tests also used a new three-stage upper that had been designed for the [[Juno I]] rocket, a further expansion of the Jupiter-C intended for future space launches. It was a Juno I that launched the U.S.'s first satellite, [[Explorer 1]], on 1 February 1958 ([[Greenwich Mean Time|GMT]]).{{sfn|Kyle|2011|loc=Testing Jupiter, Jupiter-C}}