The Soviet Union inaugurates the “space age” with the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. The spaceship, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite”, was launched at 22:29 Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Sputnik was 22 inches in diameter and weighed 184 pounds and circled the earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000 miles per hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (furthest point on Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (closest point) of 143 miles. Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe to the sound signal of the Soviet spacecraft passing over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik the orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned into the atmosphere.
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Officially, Sputnik was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year, a solar period that the International Council of Scientific Unions has declared ideal for launching artificial satellites to study the Earth and the solar system. However, many Americans feared more sinister uses of the Soviets’ new rocket and satellite technology, which was apparently ahead of the US space effort. Sputnik was about 10 times the size of the first planned US satellite, which was only due to launch next year. The US government, military and scientific community were caught off guard by Soviet technological success, and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the start of the “space race”.
The first American satellite, Explorer, was launched on January 31, 1958. By this time, the Soviets had already achieved another ideological victory by launching a dog into orbit on board. Sputnik 2. The Soviet space program then carried out a series of other space firsts in the late 1950s and early 1960s: first man in space, first woman, first three men, first spacewalk, first spacecraft spacecraft to crash into the moon, the first to orbit the moon, the first to impact Venus and the first to land smoothly on the moon. However, the United States took a giant leap in the space race in the late 1960s with the Apollo lunar landing program, which managed to land two. Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon’s surface in July 1969.
