A Navy rockoon just after a shipboard launch. A Deacon rocket is suspended below the balloon.
Public domain image.

On this date in 1955, two successful ‘Rockoon’ launches were conducted. Two ‘Loki’ rockets, supplied by US Army Ordnance, were lifted on balloons from shipboard off the coast of Greenland; at altitude, they were remotely fired and launched into space. The rockets were a part of cosmic ray studies by a State University of Iowa research group.