The
Sputnik program was a series of robotic spacecraft missions launched by the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. The first of these,
Sputnik 1Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program...
, launched the first human-made object to orbit the Earth. That launch took place on October 4, 1957 as part of the
International Geophysical YearThe International Geophysical Year was an international scientific effort that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958.The IGY encompassed eleven Earth sciences: aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, gravity, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations , meteorology,...
and demonstrated the viability of using artificial satellites to explore the upper atmosphere.
The
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
word
sputnik literally means "co-traveler", "traveling companion" or "satellite",
[The word sputnik consists of the prefix]A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, a prefix is called a preformative, as they can alter the form of the words to which they are fixed.Examples of prefixes:...
с-, indicating "with" or "together", the rootThe root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to...
пут, which means "path" or "journey", and the suffixIn grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
-ник, meaning "pertaining to or involved in." Thus, the word literally means "companion", "traveling companion" or "satellite", and is ultimately a modern adaptation of the Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic, also known as Old Bulgarian, or Old Macedonian, was the first literary Slavic language, based on the old Slavic dialect of the Thessalonica region, employed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who used it for translation of the Bible and...
version of the word: supotiniku. Contemporary American newspapers sometimes translated the word as "fellow traveler," a term that was already an anti-communistAnti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism, especially Marxism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the growing popularity of the communist movement, and took on many forms during the 20th century....
catch phrase. and its R-7 launch vehicle was designed initially to carry
nuclear warheadA ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
s.
Early flights
Sputnik 1Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program...
was launched on October 4, 1957. The satellite was 58 cm (about 23 in) in diameter and weighed approximately 83.6 kg (about 183 lb). Each of its elliptical orbits around the Earth took about 96 minutes. Monitoring of the satellite was done by many
amateur radioAmateur radio, often called ham radio, is both a hobby and a service in which participants, called "hams," use various types of radio communications equipment to communicate with other radio amateurs for public service, recreation and self-training....
operators and the Jodrell Bank Observatory.
Sputnik's
R-7 boosterThe R-7 Semyorka was the world's first true intercontinental ballistic missile and was deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War from 1959 to 1968. To the West it was known by the NATO reporting name SS-6 Sapwood and within the Soviet Union by the GRAU index 8K71...
had previously proven itself more than one month earlier as the world's first ICBM in the successful long-range test flight of August 21 (with the accomplishment published in
Aviation Week). Sputnik 1Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program...
was not visible from
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
but the casing of the
R-7 boosterThe R-7 Semyorka was the world's first true intercontinental ballistic missile and was deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War from 1959 to 1968. To the West it was known by the NATO reporting name SS-6 Sapwood and within the Soviet Union by the GRAU index 8K71...
, traveling behind it, was.
Sputnik 2Sputnik 2 was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. It was a 4-meter high cone-shaped capsule with a base diameter of 2 meters...
was launched on November 3, 1957 and carried the first living passenger into orbit, a
dogThe dog is a domesticated form of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history...
named
LaikaLaika was a Soviet space dog who became the first animal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital death. Little was known about the impact of space flight on living things at the time Laika's mission was launched...
. The mission planners did not provide for the safe return of the
spacecraftA spacecraft is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. On a sub-orbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters space then returns to the Earth. For an orbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters a closed orbit around the planetary body. Spacecraft used for human spaceflight carry people on board as...
or its
passengerA passenger is a term broadly used to describe any person who travels in a vehicle, but bears little or no responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination.There are two common contexts in which the term is used:...
, making Laika the first orbital casualty. This mission was promptly dubbed "Muttnik" by US humorists.
The first attempt to launch
Sputnik 3Sputnik 3 was a Soviet satellite launched on May 15, 1958 from Baikonur cosmodrome by a modified R-7/SS-6 ICBM. It was a research satellite to explore the upper atmosphere and the near space....
, on February 3, 1958, failed, but the second on May 15 succeeded, and it carried a large array of instruments for
geophysicalGeophysics, a major discipline of the Earth sciences and a subdiscipline of physics, is the study of the whole Earth by the quantitative observation of its physical properties. Geophysical data are used in academics to observe tectonic plate motions, study the internal structure of the Earth,...
research. Its
tape recorderThis article deals mainly with analog tape recorders for audio applications; information on digital recording, recording of video signals, and recording of data can be found in other articles....
failed, however, making it unable to measure the
Van Allen radiation beltThe Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energetic charged particles around Earth, which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field. This field is not uniformly distributed around the Earth. On the sunward side, it is compressed because of the solar wind, while on the other side it is elongated...
s.
Sputnik 4Sputnik 4 was a USSR satellite, part of the Sputnik program and a test-flight of the Vostok spacecraft that would be used for the first human spaceflight. It was launched on May 15 1960. A bug in the guidance system had pointed the capsule in the wrong direction, so instead of dropping into the...
(Korabl Sputnik 1) was launched two years later, on May 15, 1960. It was the first test-flight of the
Vostok spacecraftThe Vostok was a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union's space programme for human spaceflight.-Development:...
that would be used for the first
human spaceflightHuman spaceflight is spaceflight with a human crew and possibly passengers. This makes it unlike robotic space probes or remotely-controlled satellites...
. When reentry was attempted, a bug in the guidance system pointed the capsule in the wrong direction, so instead of re-entering the atmosphere the satellite moved into a higher orbit. It re-entered the atmosphere on or about September 5, 1962. An object identified as part of Sputnik 4 was found in a street in
Manitowoc, WisconsinManitowoc is a city in and the county seat of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States. The city is located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Manitowoc River. According to the 2000 census, Manitowoc had a population of 34,053, with over 50,000 residents in the surrounding communities...
in the USA.
Sputnik 5Sputnik 5 was the first spaceflight to send animals into orbit and return them safely back to Earth. Launched on August 19, 1960 it paved the way for the first human orbital flight less than eight months later with Vostok 1. Sputnik 5 was a USSR artificial Earth satellite from the Sputnik space...
(Korabl Sputnik 2) was launched on August 19, 1960 with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40
miceA mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. The American white-footed mouse and the deer mouse also sometimes live in houses. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common...
, 2
ratRats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s and several
plantPlants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The scientific study of plants, known as botany, has identified about 350,000 extant species of plants, defined as seed plants,...
s on board. The spacecraft returned to earth the next day and all animals were recovered safely.
Sputnik 6-Mission parameters:*Mass: 4,563 kg*Perigee: 166 km*Apogee: 232 km*Inclination: 64.97°*Period: 88.47 minutes*NSSDC ID: 1960-017A-Mission highlights:...
(Korabl Sputnik 3) was launched on December 2, 1960 with the dogs Pchelka and Mushka, who died on re-entry by an unplanned destructive charge.
Sputnik 7Sputnik 7 was the first Soviet attempt at launching a probe to explore Venus. The probe was successfully launched on February 4, 1961 into Earth orbit with a SL-6/A-2-e launcher. The launch payload consisted of an Earth orbiting launch platform and the Venera probe...
(Tyazheliy Sputnik 4); launched February 4, 1961; failed to eject its probe into a Venus trajectory
Sputnik 8Sputnik 8 was identical in design and construction to Sputnik 7, with minor adjustments to the fourth stage Molniya rocket. Sputnik 8 was an orbiting launch base and successfully launched Venera 1 to Venus....
(Tyazheliy Sputnik 5); launched February 12, 1961; platform to launch
Venera 1On February 12 1961, 00:34:36 UTC, the first planetary probe was launched to Venus by the Soviet Union. The Venus-1 Automatic Interplanetary Station, or Venera 1, was a 643.5 kg probe consisting of a cylindrical body 1.05 meter in diameter topped by a dome, totaling 2.035 meters in height...
Sputnik 9-Mission parameters:*Mass: 4,700 kg*Perigee: 173 km*Apogee: 239 km*Inclination: 64.93°*Period: 88.6 minutes*NSSDC ID: 1961-008A-Mission highlights:...
(Korabl Sputnik 4) was launched March 9, 1961. The spacecraft carried a dummy cosmonaut, the dog Chernushka, mice, and a guinea pig. The flight lasted for a single orbit, and a successful recovery was made.
Sputnik 10-Mission parameters:*Mass: 4,695 kg*Perigee: 164 km*Apogee: 230 km*Inclination: 64.9°*Period: 88.42 minutes*NSSDC ID: 1961-009A-Mission highlights:...
(Korabl Sputnik 5) was launched March 25, 1961. It carried a dummy cosmonaut and a dog (Zvezdochka), as well as the television system and other scientific apparatus. After one orbit, a successful recovery was made. This was the final precursor flight before the first human in space,
Yuri GagarinYuri Alekseyevich Gagarin , Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Soviet cosmonaut. On 12 April 1961, he became the first human in outer space and the first to orbit the Earth...
was launched on
Vostok 1Vostok 1 was the first human spaceflight. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961, taking into space Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union. The Vostok 1 mission was the first time anyone had journeyed into outer space and the first time anyone had entered into orbit...
on April 12, 1961.
Later numbers were applied by Western observers first to cover the first eight Cosmos satellites and later to denote planetary missions, referring to failures or the 4th stage left in Earth orbit. (The Soviets during this period would not admit the existence of failures, so 'Sputnik' became the
de factoDe facto is a Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it is meant to mean "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established"...
name used by trackers for such objects.) This practice seems to have ceased after
Sputnik 25Sputnik 25 was a Soviet spacecraft whose mission was an attempted lunar soft landing, with the purpose of returning data on the mechanical characteristics of the lunar surface, the hazards presented by the topology such as craters, rocks, and other obstructions, and radiation, in preparation for...
, as the Soviets began to use the 'Cosmos' name to cover such failures.
Venus Missions during the August-September, 1962
launch windowLaunch window is a term used in spaceflight to describe a time period in which a particular rocket must be launched. If the rocket does not launch within the "window", it has to wait for the next window....
:
- Sputnik 19
Sputnik 19 was a Soviet Venera-type spacecraft intended to make a landing on Venus. The Molniya launcher put the spacecraft into Earth orbit on August 25, 1962, but the escape stage failed and the probe remained in geocentric orbit for three days until the orbit decayed on August 28 and it...
(failed)
- Sputnik 20
Sputnik 20 was a Soviet spacecraft originally intended to be a Venus landing mission. The Venera-type spacecraft was successfully inserted into geocentric orbit by the SL-6/A-2-e launcher. The escape stage failed and the spacecraft was stranded in Earth orbit until it re-entered the Earth's...
(failed)
- Sputnik 21
Sputnik 21 was an unsuccessful Venus flyby mission launched on 12 September 1962 by the Soviet Union.-External links:* - from the US National Space Science Data Centre...
(failed)
Mars Missions during the October-November, 1962
launch windowLaunch window is a term used in spaceflight to describe a time period in which a particular rocket must be launched. If the rocket does not launch within the "window", it has to wait for the next window....
:
- Sputnik 22
Sputnik 22 was an attempted Mars flyby mission, launched on October 24, 1962. It was presumably similar to the Mars 1 mission launched eight days later. The intended Mars probe had a mass of 893.5 kg...
(failed)
- Sputnik 23 (launched Mars 1
Mars 1, also known as 1962 Beta Nu 1, Mars 2MV-4 and Sputnik 23, was an automatic interplanetary station launched in the direction of Mars on November 1, 1962, the first of the Soviet Mars probe program, with the intent of flying by the planet at a distance of about 11,000 km...
)
- Sputnik 24
Sputnik 24 was an attempted Mars lander mission. The SL-6/A-2-e launcher put the spacecraft and the attached booster upper stage into a 197 × 590 km Earth orbit with an inclination of 64.7 degrees...
(failed)
Lunar Missions:
- Sputnik 25
Sputnik 25 was a Soviet spacecraft whose mission was an attempted lunar soft landing, with the purpose of returning data on the mechanical characteristics of the lunar surface, the hazards presented by the topology such as craters, rocks, and other obstructions, and radiation, in preparation for...
(failed)
Sputnik 40 and Sputnik 41
Sputnik 40, also called Sputnik PS2, Radio Sputnik 17 "RS-17" and Mini-Sputnik, was a
1⁄
3-scale model
amateur radio satelliteOSCAR is an acronym for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio. OSCAR series satellites use amateur radio frequencies to communicate with Earth...
launched from the
MirMir was a Soviet space station. Mir was the world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first of the third generation type of space station, constructed from 1986 to 1996 with a modular design...
space stationA space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live in outer space. To date, only low earth orbital stations have been implemented, otherwise known as orbital stations...
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-BalkariaThe Kabardino-Balkar Republic , or Kabardino-Balkaria , is a federal subject of Russia located in the North Caucasus...
. The transmitter was built by students from Jules Reydellet College in
RéunionRéunion is an island located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas départements of France...
, with technical support from
AMSAT-FranceAMSAT is a name for amateur radio satellite organizations worldwide, but in particular the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation with headquarters at Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington DC. AMSAT organizations design, build, arrange launches for, and then operate satellites carrying amateur...
. Its batteries expired on 29 December 1998 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.
See also
- Soviet space program
The Soviet space program refers to the rocketry and space exploration programs conducted by the Soviet Union from the 1930s until its dissolution in 1991...
- Sergei Korolev: chief designer of Sputnik
- Donald B. Gillies
Donald Bruce Gillies was a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist, known for his work in game theory, computer design, and minicomputer programming environments.- Education :...
: one of the first to calculate the Sputnik 1Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program...
orbit
- Kerim Kerimov
Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov was an Azerbaijani Soviet rocket scientist, one of the founders of the Soviet space industry, and for many years a central figure in the Soviet space program. Despite his prominent role, his identity was kept a secret from the public for most of his career...
: one of the lead architects behind Sputnik
- Space Race
The Space Race was an informal competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, as each side tried to match or better the other's accomplishments in exploring outer space...
: the competition between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R for space exploration
- Woods Hole Conference
The Woods Hole Conference was held at Woods Hole, Massachusetts as a response to the Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnikseries of satellites, in 1959 to identify the problems of science education and to recommend solutions...
Impact
The surprise launch of
Sputnik 1, coupled with the spectacular failure of the United States of America's first two
Project VanguardProject Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory , which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle....
launch attempts, shocked the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, which responded with a number of early satellite launches, including Explorer 1,
Project SCOREProject SCORE was the world’s first communications satellite. Launched in an Atlas rocket on December 18 1958, SCORE provided a first test of a communications relay system in space and captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via short wave frequency from U.S. President Dwight D...
, and
Courier 1BLaunched 4 October 1960, Courier 1B was the world’s first active repeater satellite. Courier was built by the Palo Alto, California–based Western Development Labs division of Philco, previously known as Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories and now the Space Systems/Loral division of Loral Space &...
. The
Sputnik crisisThe Sputnik crisis was a turning point of the Cold War that began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 1 satellite. The United States had believed itself to be the world leader in space technology and thus the leader in missile development. The surprise of the Sputnik...
also led to the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972): DARPA, and
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
, and an increase in U.S. government spending on scientific research and education.
The launch of
Sputnik 1 inspired U.S. writer
Herb CaenHerbert Eugene Caen was a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist working in San Francisco. Born in Sacramento, California, Caen worked for the San Francisco Chronicle from the late 1930s until his death, with an interruption from 1950 to 1958 during which he wrote for the San Francisco Examiner. His...
to coin the term "
beatnikBeatnik, a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s, was a synthesis of the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s into violent film images and a cartoonish misrepresentation of the real-life people and the spirituality found in Jack Kerouac's...
" in an article about the
Beat GenerationThe Beat Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, and the cultural phenomena that they wrote about and inspired...
in the
San Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireSan Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, and one of the largest in the United States, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout...
on April 2, 1958.
See also:
-nikThe English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun...
.
Further reading
- Dickson, Paul
For the football player of the same name see Paul Dickson .Paul Dickson is a freelance writer of more than 45 non-fiction books, mostly on English language and popular culture. He has written many articles on a wide variety of subjects...
, Sputnik: The Shock of the Century, Walker & Company (June 26, 2007), ISBN 978-0802713650
Three recent historical articles are noteworthy for their research and debunking of common misinformation:
External links