Sputnik - the facts
The Sputnik program was a series of unmanned space missions launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites. The Russian name means literally "traveling companion". The Russian pronunciation is spoot'-neek with spoot like boot. It can be said to the craft that started the space race, and to be in some ways the first known space ship, and the first known space ship to carry life into space. So it was the first to enact space travel known to humans.
All Sputniks
were carried to orbit by the R-7 launch vehicle, originally designed to carry
nuclear warheads.
The surprise launch of Sputnik 1, coupled with
the spectacular failure of the first two Project Vanguard launch attempts, shocked
the United States, which responded with a number of early satellite launches,
including Explorer I, Project SCORE, Advanced Research Projects Agency and Courier
1B. Sputnik also led to the creation of NASA and major increases in U.S. Government
spending on scientific research and education. The sputnik event is seen by many
as the greatest advance in human endevours.
The launch of Sputnik 1 inspired writer Herb Caen to coin the term "beatnik" in an article about the Beat Generation in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958.
Sputnik
1 was launched on October 4, 1957. The satellite was 58 cm in diameter and weighed
approximately 83.6 kg (about 184 lb). Each of its elliptical orbits around the
Earth took about 96 minutes.
Sputnik 2 was launched on November 3, 1957 and carried the first living passenger, a dog named Laika. The mission planners did not provide for the safe return of the spacecraft or its passenger, making Laika the first space casualty.
The first attempt to launch Sputnik 3, on February 3, 1958, failed, but the second on May 15 succeeded, and it carried a large array of instruments for geophysical research. Its tape recorder failed, however, making it unable to measure the Van Allen radiation belts.
Sputnik 4 was launched two years later, on May 15, 1960.
Sputnik 5 was launched on August 19, 1960 with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants on board. The spacecraft returned to earth the next day and all animals were recovered safely.
A variety of Venera, Vostok, Voskhod, Kosmos
and other classes of Soviet spacecraft were referred to as Sputniks by American
observers, although none of these were actually named "Sputnik" by the
Soviet Union. Sputnik 25, for example, was an attempted Luna probe
Sputnik
40 and Sputnik 41
Sputnik 40, also called Sputnik PS2, Radio Sputnik 17 (RS-17)
and Mini-Sputnik, was a ?-scale model amateur radio satellite launched from the
Mir space station on 3 November 1997 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Sputnik
1. The spacecraft body resembled Sputnik 1 and was built by students at the Polytechnic
Laboratory of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria. The transmitter was built by students
from Jules Reydellet College in Réunion, with technical support from AMSAT-France.
Its batteries expired on 29 December 1997 and the VHF transmitter fell silent.
Its international designator is 1997-058C, United States Space Command object
24958.
Sputnik 41 (RS-18, designator 1998-62C, object 25533) was launched
a year later, on 10 November 1998. It also carried a transmitter.
Sputnik 1 (was the first artificial satellite to be put into geocentric orbit. The satellite helped to identify the density of high atmospheric layers by its orbit change and provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Because the satellite's body was filled with pressurized nitrogen, Sputnik 1 also provided the first opportunity for meteoroid detection as losses in internal pressure due to meteoroid penetration of the outer surface would have been evident in the temperature data. Sputnik 1 pioneered Soviet Sputnik program and ignited the so-called Space Race within the Cold War.
Sputnik-1 was set in motion during the International
Geophysical Year from the 5th Tyuratam range in Kazakh SSR (now Baikonur Cosmodrome).
The satellite travelled at 29000 kilometers (18000 mi) per hour and emitted radio
signals at around 20.005 and 40.002 MHz which were received by scientists and
ham radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued until the transmitter
batteries ran out on October 26, 1957. Sputnik 1 burned as it fell from orbit
upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, after about 60 million km, made while orbiting.
The Sputnik 1 project dates back to May 26, 1954, when Sergei Korolev
addressed Dmitry Ustinov, then Minister of Defense Industries, proposing development
of the Earth's artificial satellite and forwarding him a report by Mikhail Tikhonravov
with an overview of such works abroad. So the greatest Soviet acheivement came
post Stalin, not during Stalin's era. As Stakin died in 1953. The greatest achievement
in Russian history other than the victory of world war two, was by the left, in
a era not under Stalin. Though the other was, that being World War Two's victory.
Tikhonravov underlined, that artificial satellite is inevitable stage of rocket
equipment development, after which interplanetary communication would become possible.
On July 29, 1955 the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower announced through his press-secretary,
that the United States would launch an artificial satellite during the IGY. A
week later, on August 8, 1955 the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU
approved the idea of creation of the artificial satellite.
The Sputnik
1 satellite was a 580 mm (23 in) diameter sphere, made of highly polished 2 mm-thick
aluminium AMG6T alloy, carrying four whip-like antennas between 2.4 and 2.9 m
in length. The antennas resembled long "whiskers" pointing to one side.
It had two radio transmitters (20 and 40 MHz) and is believed to have orbited
Earth at a height of about 250 km (150 mi). Analysis of the radio signals was
used to gather information about the electron density of the ionosphere. Temperature
and pressure were encoded in the duration of radio beeps, which additionally indicated
that the satellite had not been punctured by a meteorite. Sputnik 1 was launched
by an R-7 rocket. It burned up upon re-entry on 4 January 1958.
Sputnik
was the first of several satellites in the Soviet Union's Sputnik program, the
majority of which were successful. Sputnik 2, the second satellite to enter orbit,
was also the first to carry an animal: the dog Laika. The first failure occurred
with Sputnik 3.
Soviet 40 copecks stamp, showing satellite's orbit.The
designers, engineers and technicians who developed the rocket and satellite were
watching the launching at the range. After the launch they ran to the mobile radio
station to listen to signals from the satellite. They had to wait for some time
to ensure that the satellite was in the orbit and made its first circle. The downlink
telemetry included data on temperatures inside and on the surface of the sphere.
Already on the first circuit Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union succeeded to inform: "As result of great, intense work of scientific research institutes and design bureaus the first artificial Earth satellite has been built". The Sputnik 1 rocket booster also reached Earth orbit and was visible from the ground at night as a first magnitude object. The satellite itself, a small but highly polished sphere, was barely visible at sixth magnitude, and thus more difficult to follow optically. Several replicas of the Sputnik 1 satellite can be seen at museums in Russia and another is on display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
The actual sequence of decision-making as to the form of Sputnik 1 was convoluted. A tonne-and-a-half, cone-shaped artificial satellite capable of making many physics measurements in space was first planned by Academician Keldysh, but when the Soviets read that the American Project Vanguard had two satellite designs, a small one which was just to see if they could get something into orbit, the Soviets decided to have what translates as the "Simplest Satellite" too, one which was one centimeter larger in diameter, and much heavier, than Vanguard's "real" satellite. They had to see whether the conditions in low Earth orbit would permit the bigger satellite to remain there for a useful length of time. When, months after Sputnik 1, the Vanguard test satellite was orbited, Khrushchev ridiculed it as a "grapefruit." Once the Soviets found they could orbit a test satellite too, they planned to orbit Keldysh's space laboratory satellite as Sputnik 3, and did so after one launch failure.
The New York Times issue.“ Our movies and television programs in the
fifties were full of the idea of going into space. What came as a surprise was
that it was the Soviet Union that launched the first satellite. It is hard to
recall the atmosphere of the time. John Logsdon”
Teams of visual observers 150 stations in the United States and other countries were alerted during the night to watch for the Soviet sphere at dawn and evening twilight. They have been organized in Project Moonwatch to sight the satellite through binoculars or telescopes as it passes overhead. The USSR asked radio amateurs and commercial stations to record the sound of the satellite on magnetic tape.
Soviet Union at first agreed to use equipment "compatible" with that of the United States, but then announced the lower frequencies. The White House declined to comment on military aspects of the launching, but said it "did not come as a surprise."On October 5 the Naval Research Laboratory announced it had recorded four crossings of Sputnik-1 over the United States. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower obtained photographs of the Soviet facilities from Lockheed U-2 flights conducting since 1956. However everyone on Johnston Island in the Pacific were issued sidearms to carry at all times.
Long-standing official accounts state that, based
on the degradation of Sputnik 1's orbit, the satellite re-entered the atmosphere
on or about January 4th, 1958, whereupon it is assumed to have burned up completely.
The Sputnik 1 rocket booster re-entry was expected to occur somewhere above Alaska,
or the West coast of North America, according to Soviet predictions in December
1957.
However, in light of recent evidence, certain (primarily structural) components may have survived : Per recent news reports, on the morning of December 8th, 1957, Earl Thomas of Encino, California, was leaving his home to go to work, when he noticed something glowing beneath a tree in his back yard. The source turned out to be several pieces of plastic tubing, which upon investigation, matched structural diagrams of the Sputnik 1 satellite. A local Los Angeles radio DJ, Mark Ford of KDAY Radio, was at the same time offering a $50,000 reward for anyone who had found Sputnik, which reportedly had gone down in the L.A. area. When Thomas tried to claim the reward, he was met by a representative of the United States Air Force, who received the pieces Thomas found, and wrote a receipt on Air Force stationery. Later, after the radio station denied having offered a reward, Thomas brought the receipt back to the Air Force, where the sergeant on duty gave the pieces back to Thomas. The family wrote to government officials at all levels in an attempt to collect the reward, but were told that the government had not offered a reward. Of particular interest, however, was a reply from Colonel W.G. Woodbury of the Air Force, which includes the statement "At the time you recovered the Sputnik parts..." Currently, the disputed parts are in the possession of Bob Morgan, Thomas' son. An exhibit about the parts is currently on display at The Beat Museum, in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.
The
First man made object to reach space was launched over 10 years before Sputnik
1. In 1944, a V2 rocket was launched from Peenemünde on a vertical test shot
sub-orbital trajectory to an altitude of 176 kilometers, well beyond the 100 km
altitude generally considered to be the border of space (see Kármán
line).
One Sputnik 1 replica, built by French and Russian teenagers and
hand-launched from Mir on November 3, 1997, died after two months in orbit.
In 2003 a back-up unit of Sputnik 1 called "model PS-1" was sold on eBay (minus the classified military radio parts that were removed in the 1960s). It had been on display in a science institute near Kiev. It is estimated that between four and twenty models were made for testing and other purposes
A Sputnik 1 model was given as a present to the United Nations and now decorates the entry Hall of its New York City Headquarters.
Another replica is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
Here are many great space sites
An Index with links to almost all our sites.
A Picture of Jupiter, and a Picture of Florida from Space
A Top picture of a Space Shuttle taking off A Top picture of Stars A Nebula
SOLAR SYSTEM RECORD BREAKERS, facts like the tallest mountain for the planets
A site saying the 10 most famous aliens ever
Some facts on space rockets and space shuttles
A Clock saying how many people have landed on each planet in our Solar System
Jokes to say to aliens that are offending you
Joke names for aliens, our worst Space site
A List of space associated TV programmes and Movies
What does Earth have to defend off alien attack
http://www.lonympics.co.uk/Olympus
Mons.htm Tallest mountain, and volcano in the solar system, and Mars.
A 1 move snippet game, a game where you are 1 space nation fighting another. in Space armageddon
The Entrance to the INTERNET SAFARI, with real animals, most of us had never seen before.
Global Geography, sites like what are the 10 largest English speaking countries, 10 largest Celtic cities, biggest forests, volcanoes,
SOLAR SYSTEM RECORD BREAKERS, facts like the tallest mountain for the planets
Which are the 10 most powerful countries in 2008___
The Lonympics Space centre, loads of sites on space
10 Biggest Banks Histories Famous Gates Famous Walls Quizzes Famous Roads Internet Sea Safari, The Most Powerful Countries Ever