First artificial satellite

The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, which was launched on 4 October 1957 from the Tyuratam Missile Range (now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome) in a remote part of the Kazakh SSR (then part of the Soviet Union, now Kazakhstan). It was designed and built at the OKB-1 design bureau (today known as RSC Energia), near Moscow, Russia, under the direction of Chief Designer Sergei Korolev. The satellite remained active until its batteries died 21 days after launch, and burned up on re-entry on 4 January 1958.

The satellite was carried into space on a modified R-7 Semyorka inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), which was originally designed to carry nuclear warheads. The satellite comprised a sealed metal sphere 58.5 cm (1 ft 11 in) in diameter and 83.6 kg (184 lb) in weight, with four thin aerials extending out from the top. Inside was a small radio transmitter which relayed a pulsing 20 Mhz transmission until its batteries died.

Popularly known simply as Sputnik, the proper name of the satellite was prosteyshiy sputnik 1, which roughly translates as “'simplified' or 'basic' satellite [literally 'fellow traveler'] 1”. It was called that because Korolev's team had originally planned to launch a much larger, more complex satellite – which was eventually launched as Sputnik 3 – but tight deadlines and problems with the rocket forced them to switch to a much simpler design.

Despite being a much less impressive piece of technology than originally intended, the launch of Sputnik caused an immediate global sensation. Its transmissions were strong enough to be picked up by even fairly simple receivers, allowing people around the world to quickly confirm the truth of the Soviet government's claim. The concept of a man-made satellite was not novel (the US had publicly announced their intention to launch such a thing in 1955) but it was assumed that such a leap forward was still a few years away. Moreover, the Western world (and, in fact, the people of the Soviet Union) were entirely unaware that the Soviet Union had developed its own independent launch capability.

Analysts in the US were quick to pick up on the implied message about Soviet capabilities (a country that can launch satellites can also launch nuclear weapons rapidly to any point in the globe), leading to a national panic about what was seen as the US losing technological supremacy – the "Missile Gap", as it was called. This spurred the US Government to transform the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), giving it generous funding and an explicit mission to advance American space science. This is generally seen as the beginning of the space race that would eventually see humans set foot on the Moon.