English: The Atlas launch vehicle is shown being unloaded from a U.S. Air Force Douglas C-133B-DL Cargomaster (s/n 59-0529) at CapeCanaveral, Florida. This vehicle was expected to launch a Mercury spacecraft (without any astronauts aboard), built by McDonnell Aircraft Corp., into orbit. The Atlas attempted to place the Mercury spacecraft into its first orbital flight. The spacecraft was supposed to be launched in an orbital flight path and reentry was to be initiated about 90 minutes later as the craft neared the end of the first orbit. Unfortunately, this Atlas exploded at launch. Atlas was designed to launch payloads into low Earth orbit, geosynchronous transfer orbit or geosynchronous orbit. NASA first launched Atlas as a spacelaunch vehicle in 1958. Project SCORE, the first communications satellite that transmitted President Eisenhower's pre-recorded Christmas speech around the world, was launched on an Atlas. For all three robotic lunar exploration programs, Atlas was used. Atlas/ Centaur vehicles launched both Mariner and Pioneer planetary probes. The current operational Atlas II family has a100% mission success rating. For more information about Atlas, please see Chapter 2 in Roger Launius and Dennis Jenkins' bookTo Reach the High Frontier published by The University Press of Kentucky in 2002.