Scout X-1 was flown seven times between August 1960 and October 1961 from Launch Area 3 at the Wallops Flight Facility.45
The maiden flight was a suborbital test of the rocket's systems, and was conducted on 2 July 1960, with the rocket launching at 00:04 GMT. Following this, a suborbital radiation experiment was successfully launched on 4 October 1960. The first orbital launch attempt, with the S-56 satellite, was made on 4 December 1960, and ended in failure after the second stage malfunctioned.67
On 16 February 1961, a Scout X-1 successfully placed Explorer 9, a reflight of the failed S-56, into Earth orbit, in the first successful orbital launch to be conducted by a Scout rocket. The next launch attempt on 30 June 1961 carried the S-55 satellite, but this did not reach orbit because the third stage failed to ignite. A reflight of S-55, Explorer 13, was launched on 25 August 1961, but reached a lower than planned orbit, and was unusable. The final flight of the Scout X-1 was made on 19 October 1961, carrying plasma and aeronomy research payloads on a suborbital trajectory. This launch was successful.89
Suborbital test, failure
Radiation Probe Plasma mission
S-56, failure (second stage malfunction)
Explorer 9
Krebs, Gunter. "Scout-X1". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 17 October 2023. https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau_det/scout-x1.htm ↩
Wade, Mark. "Scout X-1". www.astronautix.com. Encyclopedia Astronautica. Retrieved 17 October 2023. http://www.astronautix.com/s/scoutx-1.html ↩