Sputnik 1: The event that started space exploration

by William Atkins

Saturday, 29 September 2007

The Soviet Sputnik program was launched at 19:28:34 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or 22:28:34 Moscow Time (MSK), on October 4, 1957. Fifty years later, on October 4, 2007, the fifieth anniversary of Sputnik 1 will be celebrated.

Sputnik 1 lifted off from the Scientific-Research Test Range N.5 in Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (what the United States then sometimes called the Tyuratam Launch Complex, and what today is called the Baikonur Cosmodrome) in the former Soviet Union from a R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile.

The Sputnik 1 satellite, which weighted 184 pounds (83 kilograms), was officially called in Russian Iskustvennyi Sputnik Zemli (or “Fellow World-traveler of the Earth”).

The only mission of Sputnik 1 was to emit radio signals at around the frequencies of 20.005 megahertz and 40.002 megahertz—which it did for twenty-two days before its battery power supply died. Its orbit deteriorated over the next three months, and it burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere on January 4, 1958.

Some of the most informed and interesting articles found on the Internet to commemorate the historic flight of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957 are found at (many other good articles, no doubt, are missing from this list):

Encyclopedia Astronautica
“Sputnik Plus 50”
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/spulus50.htm

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
“Sputnik: The Fiftieth Anniversary”
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/

U.S. space historian Asif A. Siddiqu, NASA
“Korolev, Sputnik, and The International Geophysical Year”
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik/siddiqi.html

Adapted from James J. Harford’s book “Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon” (John Wiley: New York, 1997)
"Korolev's Triple Play: Sputniks 1, 2, and 3"
http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik/harford.html

Michael Wright
“Beep, Beep, Beep... Here Comes Sputnik!”
http://www.batnet.com/~mfwright/sputnik.html

Roger D. Launius, NASA Headquarters
“Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Age”
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik/sputorig.html

Jennifer Levasseur, Department of History, George Mason University
“History in Images”
http://www.benandjenniferlevasseur.com/SputnikHistory.html

U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission
“Sputnik and the Crisis That Followed”
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/SPACEFLIGHT/Sputnik/SP16.htm

Newsweek Technology and Science, MSNBC
“The Real Sputnik Story: Forget the hype. The '57 launch wasn't such a big shock”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21047652/site/newsweek/

{moscomment}

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment!