| .....The
Sputnik 1 spacecraft was the first
artificial satellite successfully placed
in orbit around the Earth and was
launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome at
Tyuratam (370 km southwest of the small
town of Baikonur) in Kazakhstan, then
part of the former Soviet Union. The
Russian word "Sputnik" means
"companion" ("satellite"
in the astronomical sense). .....In 1885
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first described in
his book, Dreams of Earth and Sky, how
such a satellite could be launched into a
low altitude orbit. It was the first in a
series of four satellites as part of the
Sputnik program of the former Soviet
Union and was planned as a contribution
to the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958).
Three of these satellites (Sputnik 1, 2,
and 3) reached Earth orbit.
|
