On the 4th October 1957, Sputnik 1 or "Cпутник-1" was launched into orbit. It heralded the ability of humankind to launch objects into orbit as well as providing the first insight to the conditions ...

A Soviet technician works on Sputnik 1 before its launch in 1957. In October 1957, amateur radio operators monitored the first signal from a spacefaring civilization — and it was us. Sputnik 1, the ...

The Sputnik 8K71PS rocket streaks across the sky over Montreal on its way to deliver Sputnik 1 into orbit. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology track Sputnik 1 from a mobile van.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover the history of science and exploration. The object that started the Space Race was small and deceptively simple. Sputnik 1 ...

October 4, 2007 Today marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Sputnik satellite. Even half a century on, the impact of the October 4th 1957 launch that saw the Soviet Union’s satellite became ...

When Sputnik 1 launched 60 years ago — on Oct. 4, 1957 — LIFE Magazine’s audience had to get used to a new reality. In a very literal sense, there was a “dazzling new sight in the heavens,” as the ...

Exactly 58 years ago, the former Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit. Awestruck American officials listened in fear as Sputnik barreled through ...

The Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on October 4, 1957, making it the first successful artificial satellite and marking the start of ...

One of the few surviving Soviet Sputniks created during Russia’s Cold War space race with the United States sold at auction at Bonhams for $847,500 on Wednesday, September 27. The piece sold was a ...

For only $269,000, you can buy a full-scale model of the Sputnik-1 satellite, made by the USSR to test the very first satellite humans launched into space. It’s still operational, with live ...

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden gave the order to shoot down a balloon, termed a “weather balloon” by Chinese officials. Off the South Carolina coast, two F-22 fighter jets from Langley Air ...