After intense lobbying of Homer Newell, NASA's deputy director of space flight programs, Rossi secured a flight opportunity on Explorer 10, " Goddard's first home-grown satellite". The unannounced goal was to hit the Moon, but after launch on 25 March 1961, the satellite went into a highly elongated orbit around Earth, whose apogee, at 70% of the distance to the Moon, was well short of this goal.