Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1 opened the Space Age with a simple radio beacon in low Earth orbit. Although it decayed within months, its signal changed science, politics and public imagination overnight.

Technical specifications

3D model is aproximate

CATEGORY

Historic

TYPE

Sphere

COUNTRY

Soviet Union

OPERATOR

Soviet space program

LAUNCH DATE

Oct 4, 1957

LAUNCH SITE

Baikonur Cosmodrome

ORBIT CLASS

LEO

ALTITUDE · KM

572

ORBITAL PERIOD · MIN

96.1

INCLINATION · DEG

APOGEE · KM

1,080

PERIGEE · KM

How we source data

Updated automatically every 30 minutes