Statistically, the most significant data have been collected from the sensors on 1958 Alpha ( Explorer 1 ), 1958 Delta 2 ( Sputnik 3 ), and 1959 Eta ( Vanguard 3 ).

* 1960 – Sputnik program: Korabl-Sputnik 2 – the Soviet Union launches the satellite with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants.

* 1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.

Laika, a stray dog, originally named Kudryavka ( Little Curly ), underwent training with two other dogs, and was eventually chosen as the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957.

According to Russian sources, the official decision to launch Sputnik 2 was made on October 10 or 12, leaving the team only four weeks to design and build the spacecraft.

Sputnik 2, therefore, was something of a rush job, with most elements of the spacecraft being constructed from rough sketches.

Aside from the primary mission of sending a living passenger into space, Sputnik 2 also contained instrumentation for measuring solar radiation and cosmic rays.

* NSSDC Master Catalog: Sputnik 2 ( 2003-11-26 ).

* Sputnik 2 at Astronautix

* 1957 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2.

But finally, three months after Sputnik 2, the project succeeded ; Explorer 1 thus became the United States ' first artificial satellite on January 31, 1958.

The launch of Sputnik 1 inspired U. S. writer Herb Caen to coin the term " beatnik " in an article about the Beat Generation in the San Francisco Chronicle on 2 April 1958.

* November 3 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with the first animal to orbit the Earth ( a dog named Laika ) on board.

* Sputnik 2 – first animal in orbit ( Laika )

On 3 November 1957, the USSR orbited Sputnik 2, the first to carry a living animal into space – a dog.

The mission followed the first two Earth satellites the previous year, the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 and 2, beginning the Cold War Space Race between the two nations.

However, before work was completed, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on November 3, 1957.

It was the second satellite to carry a mission payload ( Sputnik 2 was the first ).

The ready supply of surplus optical components after World War 2 and later Sputnik and the space race also greatly expanded the hobby.

The US achieved this goal only four months later with Explorer 1, on February 1 1958, but after Sputnik 2 in November 3 1957, making Explorer 1 the third artificial Earth satellite.

* Sputnik 2 – 3 November 1957 – Earth orbiter, first animal in orbit, a dog named Laika

On the whole, Eisenhower's support of the embryonic space program was lukewarm until the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

DARPA was established during 1958 ( as ARPA ) in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik during 1957, with the mission of keeping U. S. military technology more sophisticated than that of the nation's potential enemies.

DARPA ’ s original mission, established in 1958, was to prevent technological surprise like the launch of Sputnik, which signaled that the Soviets had beaten the U. S. into space.

Its creation was directly attributed to the launching of Sputnik and to U. S. realization that the Soviet Union had developed the capacity to rapidly exploit military technology.

The Explorer program was later reestablished to catch up with the Soviet Union after that nation's launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957.

( See: Sputnik crisis ) Explorer 1 was launched January 31, 1958.

It was the same R-7 launch vehicle that placed the first artificial satellite in space, Sputnik, on 4 October 1957.

Production started with the VAZ-21083 Sputnik 3-door hatchback ; the series was later renamed Samara.

The restyled Sputnik range was renamed Samara, but the Niva and the Oka retained their names.

A more sophisticated satellite was already under construction, but it would not be ready until December ; this satellite would later become Sputnik 3.

After a lengthy development process of roughly 20 years, it was finally decided that testing of the Istrebitel Sputnik be canceled.

* 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.

Each phase was preempted by larger social issues, such as the escalation of the Cold War, the launch of Sputnik, and public concern over medical abuses.

The world's first artificial satellite, the Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.

The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, and initiating the Soviet Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer ( there is a crater on the lunar far side which bears his name ).

The early era of space exploration was driven by a " Space Race " between the Soviet Union and the United States, the launch of the first man-made object to orbit the Earth, the USSR's Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957, and the first Moon landing by the American Apollo 11 craft on 20 July 1969 are often taken as the boundaries for this initial period.

Sputnik 1 (, " Satellite-1 ", ПС-1 ( PS-1, i. e. " Простейший Спутник-1 ", or Elementary Satellite-1 )) was the first artificial Earth satellite.

Sputnik was also scientifically valuable.

Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No. 1 / 5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR ( now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome ).

When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957 he had to play catchup in the space race.

) Additional inspiration for GPS came when the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik in 1957.

After the success of Sputnik 1, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, wanted a spacecraft launched on November 7, 1957, the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union had launched the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 and ignited the Space Race, a part of the Cold War.

When the first scientific satellites were launched in the first half of 1958 — Explorers 1 and 3 by the US, Sputnik 3 by the Soviet Union — they observed an intense ( and unexpected ) radiation belt around Earth, held by its magnetic field.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, thus starting the Space Age.

Sputnik 41 was launched a year later, and Sputnik 99 was deployed in February 1999.

In 1946, American theoretical astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer was the first to conceive the idea of a telescope in outer space, a decade before the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik.

The first orbiting space probe, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.

Clockwise, from left: United Nations soldiers during the Korean War, which was the first UN authorized conflict ; Two atomic explosions from the RDS-37 and Operation Upshot-Knothole | Upshot-Knothole ( Soviet and American, respectively ) nuclear weapons, symbolizing the escalation of Cold War tensions between the two nations in the 1950s ; Israeli troops prepare to fight the Egypt ians during the Suez Crisis of 1956 ; A replica of Sputnik I, the world's first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 ; Fidel Castro leads the Cuban Revolution in 1959 ; North Sea flood of 1953

A surprise came in 1957 ; a satellite named Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviets.

* May 15 – The satellite Sputnik 4 is launched into orbit by the Soviet Union.

* January 4 – Sputnik 1 ( launched on October 4, 1957 ) falls to Earth from its orbit and burns up.

Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No. 1 / 5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR ( now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome ).

The first artificial satellite was the Soviet Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957 and equipped with an onboard radio-transmitter that worked on two frequencies: 20. 005 and 40. 002 MHz.

In October 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik.

** Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite to be launched into orbit