Soviet Union launches Sputnik I - world’s first artificial satellite October 04,1957

 

The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.

The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic.

 Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes.

Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles.

Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators

Sputnik was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year, a solar period that the International Council of Scientific Unions declared would be ideal for the launching of artificial satellites to study Earth and the solar system.

Note

The first U.S. satellite, Explorer, was launched on January 31, 1958.

 By then, the Soviets had already achieved another ideological victory when they launched a dog into orbit aboard Sputnik 2.

The Soviet space program went on to achieve a series of other space firsts in the late 1950s and early 1960s -
1st Man in Space

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin(March 09,1934 -March 27,1968)a Russian Piolot and Cosmonaut was the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok Spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12,1961

1st  Woman in Space

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova(DOB March 06,1937)is the first woman to have flown in Space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on June 16,1963

1st Three Men in Space
1st Space Walk

Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov(DOB May 30,1934)the Russian Cosmonaut and Air Force Major General became the first human to conduct Extra Vehicular Activity(EVA) on March 18,1965, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 Mission for a 12-minute spacewalk

1st spacecraft to impact the moon
1st to orbit the moon
1st  to impact Venus and
1st  craft to soft-land on the moon.