posted 09-30-2017 06:00 PM               

Oct. 4 2017 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the launch of the first satellite: Sputnik.

The Soviet spacecraft was only equipped with a simple transmitter, but its incessant beeping sent shockwaves around the world and its flight marked the beginning of the space race. Today's sophisticated satellites can trace their origins back to Sputnik and astronauts still begin their journey from the same launch site in Baikonur.

posted 10-03-2017 08:29 AM               

For being one of the most cataclysmic events of the Space Age, there are relatively few accounts of the actual launch of Sputnik. When we remember it, we usually focus on the aftermath: the shock of the satellite, especially in the United States.

For good reason, there has been much rumination, both academic and popular, on its meaning, impact, and long-term reverberations. But the story of its genesis and the event itself remains murky and full of speculation, lacking detail. We have some specific technical details filled in — the type of rocket used, the time of the launch, and so on — but the larger story, besides some scattered anecdotal accounts, is fragmented.

The goal here in this piece is to focus on the actual events of 1957: how was Sputnik designed? How was it built? What happened during the launch? Who publicized it? Who tracked it? The goal here is to revisit, with the benefit of many new declassified documents from Russian archives, the "opening shot" of the Space Age.

posted 10-04-2017 07:14 AM               

(The video is in Russian, but it affords a good look at the small Sputnik model that Misurkin brought to the space station as his Soyuz zero-g indicator. The model, produced by RSC Energia, is made out of metal from a Buran orbiter.)