1957 first artificial satellite. School encyclopedia

On October 4, 1957, the world's first artificial Earth satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit, ushering in the space age in human history.

The satellite, which became the first artificial celestial body, was launched into orbit by the R-7 launch vehicle from the 5th Research Test Site of the USSR Ministry of Defense, which later received the open name Baikonur Cosmodrome.

PS-1 spacecraft(the simplest satellite-1) was a ball with a diameter of 58 centimeters, weighed 83.6 kilograms, and was equipped with four pin antennas 2.4 and 2.9 meters long for transmitting signals from battery-powered transmitters. 295 seconds after launch, PS-1 and the central block of the rocket, weighing 7.5 tons, were launched into an elliptical orbit with an altitude of 947 km at apogee and 288 km at perigee. At 315 seconds after launch, the satellite separated from the second stage of the launch vehicle, and its call signs were immediately heard by the whole world.

“...On October 4, 1957, the first satellite was successfully launched in the USSR. According to preliminary data, the launch vehicle gave the satellite the required orbital speed of about 8,000 meters per second. Currently, the satellite describes elliptical trajectories around the Earth and its flight can be observed in the rays of the rising and setting Sun using simple optical instruments (binoculars, telescopes, etc.).

According to calculations, which are now being refined by direct observations, the satellite will move at altitudes of up to 900 kilometers above the Earth’s surface; the time of one complete revolution of the satellite will be 1 hour 35 minutes, the angle of inclination of the orbit to the equatorial plane is 65°. On October 5, 1957, the satellite will pass over the Moscow area twice - at 1 hour 46 minutes. at night and at 6 o'clock. 42 min. morning Moscow time. Messages about the subsequent movement of the first artificial satellite, launched in the USSR on October 4, will be transmitted regularly by broadcast radio stations.

The satellite has the shape of a ball with a diameter of 58 cm and a weight of 83.6 kg. It has two radio transmitters that continuously emit radio signals with a frequency of 20.005 and 40.002 megahertz (wavelength about 15 and 7.5 meters, respectively). Transmitter powers ensure reliable reception of radio signals by a wide range of radio amateurs. The signals take the form of telegraphic messages lasting about 0.3 seconds. with a pause of the same duration. A signal of one frequency is sent during a pause of a signal of another frequency...”

Scientists M.V. Keldysh, M.K. Tikhonravov, N.S. Lidorenko, V.I. Lapko, B.S. worked on the creation of an artificial Earth satellite, led by the founder of practical cosmonautics S.P. Korolev. Chekunov and many others.

The PS-1 satellite flew for 92 days, until January 4, 1958, completing 1,440 revolutions around the Earth (about 60 million kilometers), and its radio transmitters operated for two weeks after launch.

The launch of an artificial Earth satellite was of enormous importance for understanding the properties of outer space and studying the Earth as our planet solar system. Analysis of the received signals from the satellite gave scientists the opportunity to study the upper layers of the ionosphere, which was not possible before. In addition, information about the operating conditions of the equipment, which was very useful for further launches, was obtained, all calculations were checked, and the density of the upper layers of the atmosphere was determined based on the braking of the satellite.

The launch of the first artificial Earth satellite received a huge worldwide response. The whole world learned about his flight. The entire world press talked about this event.

In September 1967, the International Astronautical Federation proclaimed October 4 as Beginning Day. space age humanity.

Press service of Roscosmos

Day of the beginning of the space age of mankind (October 4, 1957); proclaimed by the International Astronautical Federation in September 1967 (on this day the world's first artificial Earth satellite was successfully launched in the USSR)

On October 4, 1957, the world's first artificial Earth satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit, ushering in the space age in human history. The satellite, which became the first artificial celestial body, was launched into orbit by the R-7 launch vehicle from the 5th research site of the USSR Ministry of Defense, which later received the open name of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The PS-1 spacecraft (the simplest satellite-1) was a ball with a diameter of 58 centimeters, weighed 83.6 kilograms, and was equipped with four pin antennas 2.4 and 2.9 meters long for transmitting signals from battery-powered transmitters. 295 seconds after launch, PS-1 and the central block of the rocket, weighing 7.5 tons, were launched into an elliptical orbit with an altitude of 947 km at apogee and 288 km at perigee. At 315 seconds after launch, the satellite separated from the second stage of the launch vehicle, and its call signs were immediately heard by the whole world. The PS-1 satellite flew for 92 days, until January 4, 1958, completing 1,440 revolutions around the Earth (about 60 million km), and its radio transmitters operated for two weeks after launch. The United States was able to repeat the success of the USSR only on February 1, 1958, launching on the second attempt the Explorer 1 satellite, weighing 10 times less than the first satellite. Scientists M.V. worked on the creation of an artificial Earth satellite, led by the founder of practical cosmonautics S.P. Korolev. Keldysh, M.K. Tikhonravov, N.S. Lidorenko, V.I. Lapko, B.S. Chekunov and many others.

The formation of the rocket and space industry and technology in our country practically began in the spring of 1946. It was then that research institutes, design bureaus, testing centers and factories for the development and production of long-range ballistic missiles were formed. Then NII-88 (later OKB-1, TsKBM, NPO Energia, RSC Energia) appeared - the main institute in the country's jet weapons, headed by S.P. Korolev. Together with the chief designers - on rocket engines, control systems, command instruments, radio systems, launch complexes, etc., S.P. Korolev supervised the creation of rocket and space systems that ensured the first and subsequent flights of automatic and manned vehicles. In a short historical period, a powerful industry was created in the country to produce a wide variety of rocket and space technology. Thousands of devices for various purposes were designed, built and sent into space, and a huge amount of work was done to study outer space. Launch vehicles “Zenit”, “Proton”, “Cosmos”, “Molniya”, “Cyclone” launched scientific research, applied, meteorological, navigation, and military satellites “Electron”, “Gorizont”, “Start” into space orbit. , “Cosmos”, “Resource”, “Gals”, “Forecast”, communication satellites “Ekran”, “Molniya” and others. Unique work was done by automatic spacecraft during flights to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Halley's Comet.

“The first great step of humanity is to fly out of the atmosphere and become a satellite of the Earth. The rest is relatively easy, up to the distance from our solar system.”

NEW SPACE AGE

On October 4, 1957, the world's first artificial Earth satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit, ushering in the space age in human history.

The PS-1 spacecraft (the simplest satellite-1) was a ball with a diameter of 58 centimeters, weighed 83.6 kilograms, and was equipped with four pin antennas 2.4 and 2.9 meters long for transmitting signals from battery-powered transmitters. 295 seconds after launch, PS-1 and the central block of the rocket, weighing 7.5 tons, were launched into an elliptical orbit with an altitude of 947 km at apogee and 288 km at perigee. At 315 seconds after launch, the satellite separated from the second stage of the launch vehicle, and its call signs were immediately heard by the whole world.

The creation of an artificial Earth satellite, led by the founder of practical astronautics S.P. Scientists M.V. worked with Korolev. Keldysh, M.K. Tikhonravov, N.S. Lidorenko, V.I. Lapko, B.S. Chekunov and many others.

The launch of an artificial Earth satellite was of enormous importance for understanding the properties of outer space and studying the Earth as a planet in our solar system. Analysis of the received signals from the satellite gave scientists the opportunity to study the upper layers of the ionosphere, which was not possible before. In addition, information about the operating conditions of the equipment, which was very useful for further launches, was obtained, all calculations were checked, and the density of the upper layers of the atmosphere was determined based on the braking of the satellite.

The launch of the first artificial Earth satellite received a huge worldwide response. The whole world learned about his flight. The entire world press talked about this event.

In September 1967, the International Astronautical Federation proclaimed October 4 as the Day of the Beginning of the Human Space Age.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SATELLITE

“On October 4, 1957, the first satellite was successfully launched in the USSR. According to preliminary data, the launch vehicle gave the satellite the required orbital speed of about 8,000 meters per second. Currently, the satellite describes elliptical trajectories around the Earth and its flight can be observed in the rays of the rising and setting Sun using simple optical instruments (binoculars, telescopes, etc.).

Sputnik: BAD IDEA

Mikhail Klavdievich Tikhonravov was a man of incredible curiosity. Mathematics and many engineering disciplines, which he mastered at the Academy. N. E. Zhukovsky did not dry up his romantic passion and penchant for fantastic thoughts. He painted landscapes in oils, collected a collection of woodcutter beetles, and studied the dynamics of insect flight, secretly hoping to discover some kind of new principle to design an incredible aircraft. He liked to mathematize dreams, and he received, perhaps, equal pleasure when calculations showed their reality, and when, on the contrary, they led to absurdity: he loved to find out. One day Tikhonravov decided to shortchange the artificial Earth satellite. Of course, he read Tsiolkovsky and knew that a single-stage rocket would not be able to put a satellite into orbit, he carefully studied his “Space Rocket Trains”, “The Highest Speed of a Rocket” and other works in which the idea of a multi-stage rocket was first theoretically substantiated, but he was interested in estimating various options for connecting these stages, see what all this adds up to on a scale, in short - decide how realistic the very idea of obtaining the first cosmic speed needed by a satellite is at the current level of development of rocket technology. I started counting and became seriously interested. The defense research institute in which Mikhail Klavdievich worked was engaged in things incomparably more serious than an artificial Earth satellite, but to the credit of his boss, Alexei Ivanovich Nesterenko, all this unscheduled semi-fantastic work at the institute was not only not persecuted, but, on the contrary, was encouraged and supported by him, although it was not advertised in order to avoid accusations of project-making. Tikhonravov and a small group of his equally enthusiastic employees in 1947-1948, without any computers, did colossal calculation work and proved that there really is a real version of such a rocket package, which, in principle, can accelerate a certain load to the first cosmic speed.

In June 1948, the Academy of Artillery Sciences was preparing to hold a scientific session, and the institute where Tikhonravov worked received a paper asking what reports the research institute could present. Tikhonravov decided to report the results of his calculations on the satellite - an artificial Earth satellite. No one actively objected, but the topic of the report still sounded so strange, if not outlandish, that they decided to consult with the president of the artillery academy, Anatoly Arkadyevich Blagonravov.

Completely gray-haired at 54 years old, a handsome, exquisitely polite academician in the uniform of an artillery lieutenant general, surrounded by several of his closest employees, listened to the small delegation from the NIH very carefully. He understood that Mikhail Klavdievich’s calculations were correct, that all this was not Jules Verne or Herbert Wells, but he also understood something else: such a report would not grace the scientific session of the Artillery Academy.

“It’s an interesting question,” Anatoly Arkadyevich said in a tired, colorless voice, “but we won’t be able to include your report.” They will hardly understand us... They will accuse us of doing the wrong thing...

The people in uniform sitting around the president nodded in agreement.

When the small delegation of the research institute left, Blagonravov experienced some kind of mental discomfort. He worked a lot with the military and learned from them in general useful rule don't revise decisions made, but then again and again he returned to Tikhonravov’s report and at home in the evening he thought about it again, he could not get rid of the thought that this frivolous report was in fact serious.

Tikhonravov was a real researcher and good engineer, but he was not a fighter. The AAN president's refusal upset him. At the research institute, its young employees, who had remained silent in the president’s office, now raised a clamor, in which, however, new serious arguments in favor of their report flashed.

Why were you silent there? - Mikhail Klavdievich got angry.

We must go again and persuade the general! - the youth decided.

And the next day they went again. There was an impression that Blagonravov seemed delighted at their arrival. He smiled and listened to the new arguments with half an ear. Then he said:

OK then. We will include the report in the session plan. Get ready - we'll blush together...

Then there was a report, and after the report, as Blagonravov expected, one very serious man of considerable rank asked Anatoly Arkadyevich, as if in passing, looking over his interlocutor’s head:

The institute probably has nothing to do, and that’s why you decided to move into the field of science fiction...

There were plenty of ironic smiles. But there were not only smiles. Sergei Korolev approached Tikhonravov without a smile and said, sternly speaking in his manner:

We need to have a serious conversation...

SATELLITE AS A WARNING

Few people in America have heard of a man named Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. However, it was thanks to him that NASA was created; It was thanks to him that we got to the moon. It was thanks to this mysterious Russian that federal loans appeared in our country for higher education; He's the reason we can watch National Football League games on DirecTV.

“Chief Designer” - these words became the name of Korolev, the real information about whom was a state secret of the Soviet Union - almost single-handedly began the world rocket and space race. To a very large extent because of this stubborn man, a survivor of the Stalinist Gulag, although he lost all his teeth and almost his life in the Siberian camps, in 1960 the Republican Party lost the election to the White House, and Lyndon B. Johnson, on the contrary, passed along with John F. Kennedy and eventually became the thirty-sixth President of America.

For all these events are nothing more than even the largest consequences of the launch of the tiny Soviet Sputnik, created under the leadership of Korolev 50 years ago and launched into space on October 4, 1957. This launch caused panic in the United States, the consequences of which we feel until The main source of fear, however, was not this aluminum ball, but the huge carrier on which it flew into space - the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. This 183-ton weapon gave the former Soviet Union the ability to destroy any city on Earth in a few minutes - at that time it was an opportunity that no one had. For the first time in American history, its territory became vulnerable to attack by a foreign power.

SECOND SLAP TO AMERICA

Before the United States could respond in any way to the flight of Sputnik 1, a second satellite was launched into low-Earth orbit on November 3 of the same year.

Laika is a dog, the first living creature launched into Earth orbit. It was launched into space on November 3, 1957 at half past six in the morning Moscow time on the Soviet ship Sputnik-2. She was housed in a space kennel the size of a washing machine. At that time, Laika was about two years old and weighed about 6 kilograms. Like many other animals in space, the dog died during the flight - 5-7 hours after launch, she died from stress and overheating. Although Laika failed to survive, the experiment confirmed that a living passenger could survive launch into orbit and weightlessness; Thus, Laika paved the way to space for people, including Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. The first animals to return safely from space flight were the dogs Belka and Strelka.