Sputnik 1 was the 1957 space mission that launched the first artificial satellite.
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard an R-7 rocket. The polished sphere carried four external radio antennas and transmitted simple beeping signals that could be detected by radio receivers around the world. Its launch marked the beginning of the Space Age and intensified the Cold War space competition between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Sputnik 1 orbited Earth at roughly 215 to 939 kilometres above the surface and completed an orbit in about 96 minutes. The satellite stopped transmitting after about three weeks when its chemical batteries were exhausted, but it remained in orbit until reentering the atmosphere on 4 January 1958. Sputnik 2 followed a month later and carried the dog Laika, while the American satellite Explorer 1 launched in January 1958. Those missions are distinct from Sputnik 1’s historic first.