See photos from the historic mission.
Launching of the first artificial earth satellite.
It orbited for three weeks before its batteries died and then orbited silently for two months before.
That launch ushered in new political military technological and scientific developments.
It achieved an earth orbit with an apogee farthest point from earth of 940 km 584 miles and a perigee nearest point of 230 km 143 miles circling.
The soviet union launched it into an elliptical low earth orbit on 4 october 1957.
The white house agreed that this might be a good idea and announced plans to launch an earth orbiting satellite to take measurements of the upper atmosphere and the effects of the solar wind.
Satellite 1 or ps 1 простейший спутник 1 or prosteyshiy sputnik 1 elementary satellite 1 was the first artificial earth satellite.
Or 183 9 pounds and took about 98 minutes to orbit earth on its elliptical path.
Such satellites were not a new idea.
Sputnik 1 the first artificial satellite launched was a 83 6 kg 184 pound capsule.
The world s first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball 58 cm or 22 8 inches in diameter weighed only 83 6 kg.
In the context of spaceflight a satellite is an object that has been intentionally placed into orbit these objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as earth s moon.
In october 1954 scientists called for the first ones to be launched during igy to map earth s surface.
Sputnik any of a series of three artificial earth satellites the first of whose launch by the soviet union on october 4 1957 inaugurated the space age.
