For years, conflicting reports have been published, some by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, about which of the two pads at Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 26 hosted the Explorer 1 launch on January 31, 1958.  The source of this confusion may be the way the pads are displayed at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Museum, which has occupied the site since 1966.  The display includes the LC 26 A-frame mobile service tower parked at LC 26B, the southernmost pad.  A Redstone missile stands within the tower in launch position.  Next to the tower are markers that describe LC 26 to be the historic Explorer 1 launch site. 

Five hundred feet to the north, a U.S. Air Force Thor-Able stands alone on LC 26A.  No markers are in place to explain that LC 26A was the actual launch site of Jupiter-C/Juno 1 "UE" (Redstone No. 29) with Explorer 1, America's first Earth orbiting satellite, at least according to the official U.S. Air Force Eastern Range Launch Summary (Eastern Range Launches 1950-1994, Chronological Summary, January 1995, U.S. Air Force, 45th Space Wing History Office, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida).  No markers are also in place to explain that the U.S. Air Force Thor never flew from any of the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) pads at LC 5, LC 6, and LC 26. 

That would seem to be the end of the story, but a review of available photographs cannot rule out the possibility that the two pads were not identified differently when the site was first completed in 1957.  It is possible that LC 26A might have initially been the southern pad and LC 26B the northern pad.

The rarely-published photo of Redstone No. 29 above seems fairly decisive about the matter.  The photo, taken looking toward the south, seems to show that this is the northernmost pad, because no gantry rails are seen extending away from the pad toward the right of the picture.  The gantries, or mobile service towers, rode on double track standard-guage rails that ran in a straight line through all four of the ABMA launch pads.  The gantries approached the pads from the south.  The rails were laid through all of the concrete pads, but stopped at the northern edge of the northernmost LC 26 pad, the one identified as LC 26A by the U.S. Air Force.

Buttressing the argument that this is the northern pad is the fact that no bypass tracks appear in the foreground of the image.  The bypass tracks diverged east from the main tracks in between the twin pads (see a map) and should have been visible in this view.  As we shall see below, however, the bypass tracks were not installed when the complex opened in 1957, but were added sometime before mid-1958, so it is possible that the tracks were not in place by January 1958.

The photo also provides a useful view of the A-frame tower that spent most of its time at LC 26.  This tower had a beefier crane than the other, older A-frame that usually appears in photos of LC 5.  This same tower, though since refurbished, sits at LC 26B today.  Before LC 26 was completed, this tower was used for one or more launches at LC 6.  It appears, for example, in a prelaunch photo with Redstone No. 35 ("NS"), launched 7-12-1957 from LC 6, three months before LC 26 entered service. 

On the other hand, this U.S. Army photo (click on photo for enlargement) muddles the issue.  It shows a Jupiter IRBM standing on the southernmost pad at LC 26.  The photographer was standing on a mobile service tower platform, the tower having been moved back to its parking position to allow missile fueling. 

The missile, identified as "AM-2" in the photo caption, is being prepped for launch, for a static engine firing, or is undergoing some type of fueling test.  Early ABMA practice required people to be present on the pad, despite the hazards presented by a fully fueled missile, complete with highly flammable liquid oxygen vapors.

The problem with this photo is that official U.S. Air Force records list the Jupiter AM-2 launch, the fourth launch of the IRBM and the second success, as having occurred from LC 26A on August 28, 1957.  Either the photo caption is incorrect, which is possible because three Jupiter launches did occur from LC 26B in 1957, or the caption is correct, raising the possibility that LC 26A was the southern pad during 1957/58.  That the photo was taken before mid-1958 is certain because the bypass tracks are not seen. 

This U.S. Air Force photo (click for enlargement) shows Jupiter CM-209 rising from LC 26A during the first NATO Jupiter Combat Training Launch on an April 4, 1961.  This is clearly the northern pad.  The bypass tracks, added in 1957 or 1958, are visible diverging toward the east. 

This photo was taken from the LC 26B tower, which at the time enclosed Juno 2 AM19E being prepared for launch of NASA's Explorer 11.  The Combat Training Launches used dedicated, field-type ground support equipment and, therefore, the did not require use of a dedicated service tower.  Jupiter was, in fact, the first and only NATO IRBM to be deployed that possessed some degree of mobility.  It could be set up at a minimally prepared site, its propulsion section enclosed by an enclosure that could quickly open like a flower to allow rapid fueling.  This equipment was used for the Combat Training Launches on LC 26A. 

This photo shows the offending Thor-Able that trespasses today at LC 26A, the apparent site of America's first successful satellite launch.  Perhaps one day the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Museum will find another, more appropriate location for this rocket, historic in its own right, so that a proper marker or display can be set up at LC26A. 
 

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Launch Complex 5/5/26A/26B Launch Log  -  Added 2/21/2000