Standing 21.6 meters (70.8 feet) high and weighing more than 10,000 kilograms (20,000 pounds), the Vanguard launch vehicle successfully orbited three satellites. The first was Vanguard 1, launched on March 17, 1958.

The rocket has three stages. The first-stage motor, burning kerosene and liquid oxygen, operated for 2 minutes and 20 seconds. The second stage carried the vehicle to an altitude of 210 kilometers (130 miles), propelled by white-fuming nitric acid and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH). With propellants exhausted, the upper stages then coasted to 480 kilometers (300 miles) above the surface of the Earth where the solid-propellant third-stage motor fired to place the satellite into orbit.

The Vanguard was designed and built by the Martin Company for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.