Archive - Oct 2007
- Date
- Type
October 1st
ISS Radio Report
ISS Radio Report
ISS Radio Report
Sputnik and Amateur Radio
On October 4, 1957, shortly after midnight local time, the treeless steppe near Tyura-Tam in central Kazakhstan lit up as the rocket motors of a converted ICBM pushed its way into the night sky. After 324.5 seconds of flight, a compressed air release mechanism separated a small payload from the rocket booster sending it on an elliptical path around our planet. This was the dawn of the space age. The former Soviet Union had successfully placed the first man-made object into orbit. Sputnik I, as the world came to know the first artificial earth satellite, was not only an important scientific and technical achievement but also an important historical milestone that marked the beginning of human space exploration and shaped many social and political events over the remainder of the 20th century.