On this day in 1969…
On this day: 1 October 1969, ESRO-1B was launched on a Scout rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. It was the fourth successfully launched ESRO satellite, and had been placed into a lower circular orbit to provide complementary measurements for ESRO-1A (launched a year earlier). However the orbit of ESRO-1B was lower than planned, resulting in the re-entry of the satellite 23 November 1969.