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.
Launching of the first artificial earth satellite.
On 4 october 1957 the soviet union launched the world s first artificial satellite sputnik 1 since then about 8 900 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched.
See photos from the historic mission.
The soviet union launched it into an elliptical low earth orbit on 4 october 1957.
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.
Sputnik 1 ˈ s p ʊ t n ɪ k ˈ s p ʌ t n ɪ k.
That launch ushered in new political military technological and scientific developments.
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.
4 1957 the former soviet union successfully launched sputnik 1 the first human made object to enter earth orbit.
Or 183 9 pounds and took about 98 minutes to orbit earth on its elliptical path.
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.
Such satellites were not a new idea.
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.
