THE

LAUNCH OF
SPUTNIK,
1957
By: Wojciech Bonk 2E
SPUTNIK 1
THE FIRST
ARTIFICIAL
SATELITE
The soviet union inaugurates the "Space Age" with its
launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, on
October 4, 1957. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the
Russian word for “fellow traveler,” was launched at 10:29
p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the
Kazakh Republic.
HOW BIG WAS
THE SPUTNIK 1?
 Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches,
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.
HOW STRONG WERE
THE RADIO SIGNALS?
 Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth
strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio
operators. Those in the United States with access
to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe
as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over
America several times a day.
DETERIORATIO
N OF SPUTNIK
 In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated, as
expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the
atmosphere.
AN IMPACT OF
THIS EVENT ON
THE USA
 The successful launch came as a shock
to experts and citizens in the United
States, who had hoped that the USA
would accomplish this scientific
advancement first. The fact that the
Soviets were successful fed fears that
the U.S. military had generally fallen
behind in developing new technology.
As a result, the launch of Sputnik
served to intensify the arms race and
raise Cold War tensions.
 THE FIRST  The first U.S. satellite, "Explorer", was
launched in 1958. The satellite was much
U.S. SATELLITE-"E more technologically advanced than "Sputnik
1". This event is considered as the
XPLORER" beginning of the "space race".
THE SOVIETS
ANSWER
 By then, the Soviets had already achieved
another ideological victory when they launched
a dog(Laika) 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: first man in space, first woman,
first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft
to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first
to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on
the moon.
APOLLO 11, THE The United States took a giant leap ahead in the
space race in the late ’60s with the Apollo lunar-
landing program, which successfully landed
END OF THE two Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface of the
moon in July 1969. The events is considered as the
"SPACE RACE" end of the "space race"- the war, but in the space
surface.
THE END  Thank you for your attention!