British Civil Aviation in 1962

26 April
The first United States/United Kingdom satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral. A Thor-Delta booster puts Ariel I, containing six United Kingdom space experiments into orbit.

The experiments are designed to study the ionosphere and its relationship to solar radiation and are comprised of one cosmic ray, two solar emission and three ionospheric experiments. The first in a series of five satellites, Ariel-1 provides data from its launch until September 1962 and sporadically after that until it is turned off in November 1964.