One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1959
stage liquid-fueled missile was to be deployed in underground silos
and raised to the surface before launch.
February 12: Strategic Air Command retired its last B–36 Peacemaker, thus
becoming an all-jet bomber force.
February 28: The Air Force successfully launched the Discoverer I satellite
into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. A polar
orbit allows a satellite to fly over all surface points because of Earth’s
rotation.
April 6: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced
the selection of seven pilots from the U.S. armed services as astronauts
for Project Mercury. Among them were three USAF captains: L. Gordon
Cooper, Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton.
April 23: The GAM–77 (AGM–28) Hound Dog supersonic missile, designed
to deliver a nuclear warhead over a distance of several hundred miles,
was test-fired for the first time from a B–52 bomber at Eglin Air Force
Base, Florida.
A Hound Dog (AGM–28) missile, designed during the Cold War to be fired from B–52
Stratofortress bombers
May 25: Air Defense Command accepted its first F–106 Delta Dart, a new
interceptor designed to replace the F–102 Delta Dagger.
May 28: Two chimpanzees were recovered alive from the Atlantic Ocean
near Antigua Island after a flight to an altitude of 300 miles in the nose
cone of a Jupiter missile launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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