SPUTNIK 1

'''Sputnik 1''' (, "Satellite-1", byname 'ПС-1' (''PS-1'', i.e. "Простейший Спутник-1", or ''Elementary Satellite-1'')) was the first artificial satellite to be put into geocentric orbit. Launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, it was the first satellite of the Sputnik program.
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 meteorite detection, as losses in internal pressure due to meteoroid penetration of the outer surface would have been evident in the temperature data. The unanticipated announcement of ''Sputnik 1's success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States 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 29,000 kilometers (18,000 mi) per hour and emitted radio signals at around 20.005 and 40.002 MHz^[1] which were received by scientists and ham radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 22 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on October 26, 1957.^[2] ''Sputnik 1'' burned as it fell from orbit upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, after traveling about 60 million km (37 million miles) in orbit.

Contents

Prior to launch

Design

Mission

Feedback

Controversy surrounding re-entry

Trivia

Replicas

Notes

See also

References

External links

Authentic recordings of the signal

History

Primary sources

Miscellaneous

Prior to launch

The history of the ''Sputnik 1'' project dates back to May 27 1954, when Sergei Korolev addressed Dmitry Ustinov, then Minister of Defense Industries, proposing development of an artificial satellite of the Earth and forwarding him a report by Mikhail Tikhonravov with an overview of similar projects abroad.^[3] Tikhonravov emphasized that an artificial satellite is an inevitable stage in the development of rocket equipment, after which interplanetary communication would become possible. ^[4] 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 International Geophysical Year.^[5] A week later, on August 8, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU approved the idea of creating an artificial satellite.^[6] On August 30 Vasily Ryabikov, the head of the State Commission on R-7 rocket test launches, held a meeting where Korolev presented calculation data on the spacecraft to be sent to the Moon. They decided to develop a three-stage version of the R-7 rocket for satellite launches.^[7]
On January 30 1956, the Council of Ministers of the USSR approved practical work on an artificial satellite of the Earth. This satellite, named "Object D", was planned to be completed in 1957-58; it would have a mass of 1,000 to 1,400 kg (2,200 to 3,090 lbs) and would carry 200 to 300 kg (440 to 660 lbs.) of scientific instruments.^[8] The first test launch of "Object D" was scheduled for 1957. According to that decision, work on the satellite was divided between institutions as follows:^[9]

★ USSR Academy of Sciences was responsible for the general scientific leadership and research instruments supply

★ Ministry of Defense Industry and its main executor OKB-1 were assigned a task of creating the satellite as a special carrier for scientific research instruments

★ Ministry of Radiotechnical Industry should develop the control system, radiotechnical instruments and the telemetry system

★ Ministry of Ship Building Industry should develop gyroscope devices

★ Ministry of Machine Building should develop ground launching, refueling and transportation means

★ Ministry of Defense was responsible for conducting launches
Unfortunately the complexity of the ambitious design and problems in following exact specifications meant that some parts of 'Object D' when delivered for assembly simply did not fit with the others causing costly delays. With the new R-7 launch vehicle design completed and fearing the U.S. would launch a satellite before the USSR, Korolev decided to postpone Object D and create a new satellite that was simple, light, and easy to construct that would forgo the complex, heavy scientific equipment in favour of a simple radio transmitter. Object D would later fly as Sputnik 3.

Design

A picture of Sputnik 1 in the fall of 1957 as a technician puts finishing touches on it.

The Sputnik 1 satellite was a 585 mm (23 in) diameter sphere, made of highly polished 2 mm-thick aluminum AMG6T alloy,^[10] carrying four whip-like antennas between 2.4 and 2.9 meters (7.9 and 9.5 ft.) in length. The antennas resembled long "whiskers" pointing to one side. It had two radio transmitters (20.005 and 40.002 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 start of the space race.
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. This was followed by one launch failure and then Sputnik 3, an orbiting physics laboratory.

Mission

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 research institutes and design bureaus the first artificial Earth satellite has been built".^[11] 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 others are on display in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Science Museum, London, England.
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 Mstislav 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.

Feedback

''The New York Times'' issue.

Teams of visual observers at 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.^[12] The USSR asked radio amateurs and commercial stations to record the sound of the satellite on magnetic tape.
The 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."^[13] 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.^[14] However everyone on Johnston Island in the Pacific were issued sidearms to carry at all times.

Controversy surrounding re-entry

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. ^[15]
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.
''HAVE THE BEATNIKS FOUND SPUTNIK?'' The Beat Museum in North Beach

Trivia

★ 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 km (109 miles), well beyond the 100 km (62 miles) altitude generally considered to be the border of space (see Kármán line). ^[16]

★ The previous altitude record before the V-2 was held by the artillery shells of the Paris Gun, the first artificial object to enter the stratosphere with an apogee of approximately 30 miles.

Replicas

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.
A further replica is on display in the Space section of the Science Museum, London.

Notes

1. Soviet Fires Earth Satellite Into Space William J Jorden
2. Sputnik
3. On the possibility of Earth's artificial satellite development, letter by Sergei Korolev, May 26 1954
4. First artificial satellites, "Zenit", "Electron"
5. Korolev and Freedom of Space: February 14, 1955–October 4, 1957 at NASA
6. On the creation of the Earth's artificial satellite, by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, August 8, 1955
7. [G. S. Vetrov, Korolev And His Job. Appendix 2 epizodsspace.testpilot.ru/bibl/vetrov/korolev-delo/06-01.html]
8. The Beginning
9. On the Launch of the First Earth's artificial satellite in the USSR by Nikolai Lidorenko
10. Sputnik 1
11. Спутник-1 - начало космической эры
12. Course Recorded Walter Sullivan
13. Senators Attack Missile Fund Cut
14. Here Comes Sputnik!
15. http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193257486
16. V-2 Chronology

See also

★ ILLIAC I - First computer to calculate the orbit of Sputnik I.

★ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, created in 1958)

References

★ M. Gruntman, ''Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry'', AIAA, Reston, Va., 2004, ISBN 978-1-56347-705-8.

★ Road to Space. The First Thousand Years. The Early History of Rocketry and Space Exploration - video (1 hr 10 min)

External links

Authentic recordings of the signal

★ Recording from Washington DC

★ Recording from German Ham Operator

★ Recording from Czechoslovakia
This Russian page contains signals which are probably the faster pulsations from Sputnik-2:

★ World's first satellite and the international community's response
A NASA history website on Sputnik contains this commonly copied recording, which is some pulse-duration-modulated signal of an unknown spacecraft:

★ NASA false Sputnik recording

History

★ Sputnik: 50 Years Ago

★ Sputnik 1 Diary

Primary sources

★ Soviet documents

★ Newspaper accounts on radio ham operators

Miscellaneous

★ 1958 Video Newsreel of Russian Exhibition of Sputnik 1

★ NASA on Sputnik 1

★ A joint Russian project of Ground microprocessing information systems SRC "PLANETA" and Space Monitoring Information Support laboratory (IKI RAN) dedicated to the 40th anniversary of ''Sputnik 1''

★ International Sputnik Day