Volume 12 , Issue 40

This Day In History - 4 October 1957

Anyone old enough to remember the Russia Sputnik and how the Soviet Union inaugurated the Space Age?

Let me see! I would have been nine years of age. I vaguely remember talk about Sputnik in the newspapers, on the radio and grownups talking about it, but that is all. We were lucky, it seemed, to get a descent, but static, snowy picture on the little, black & white, oval TV screen back then.

The Soviet Union inaugurated the "Space Age" with its launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. The spacecraft was named Sputnik after the Russian word for "satellite."

It was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. 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.

Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, 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. In January 1958, Sputnik's orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere. Any Amateur radio out there remembering picking Sputnik's radio signals?   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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