First piece of space junk

The first piece of space junk is the core of the R-7 rocket that carried the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit on 4 October 1957. After separating from the satellite, this spent rocket stage remained in orbit for just under two months, performing 882 orbits before re-entering on 1 December. The core has been retroactively given the international designation "1957-001A" and the satellite name "SL-1 R/B".

The design of the R-7 rocket would be familiar to anyone who has seen its direct descendant, the Soyuz (used for crew and cargo launches to the International Space Station). It had four conical booster rockets attached to a tapered cylindrical core, with the payload mounted at the tip of the core stage. On launch, the boosters would burn to depletion before detaching, at which point the core stage engines would ignite and carry the payload into orbit.

The core stage of the R-7 that launched Sputnik 1 (given the index number of "8K71PS") was 26 metres long and had a mass of around 7.5 tonnes once its fuel was depleted.