Encyclopedia > Sputnik

  Article Content

Sputnik program

Redirected from Sputnik

The Sputnik program was a series of unmanned space missions launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites. The name "Sputnik" ("Спутник") means "fellow traveller" in Russian.

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957. See that page for mission details.

Sputnik 2 was launched some months later, and carried the first living passenger, a dog named Laika. The mission planners did not provide for the safe return of the spacecraft or its passenger, making Laika the first space casualty.

The first attempt to launch Sputnik 3[?] on February 3, 1958 failed, but the second on May 15 succeeded, and it carried a large array of instruments for geophysical research. Its tape recorder failed, however, making it unable to measure the Van Allen radiation belts.

Sputnik 4[?] was launched into orbit two years later on May 15, 1960.

All Sputniks were carried to orbit by the R.7 launch vehicle[?], originally designed to carry ballistic warheads.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Dana International

...     Contents Dana International Dana International (born Yaron Cohen February 2, 1972) is an Israeli transsexual pop singer, who won ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 39.4 ms