Sputnik: The Cause Of The Space Race

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Continuous Success

On october 4,1957, the Soviet Union dispatched their first artificial satellite known as Sputnik 1 into orbit. This was the first event that started and caused the Space Race. The Sputnik 1 was only approximately 23.0 inches in diameter and was not capable of holding any passengers. The satellite was put into orbit for almost an entire 92 days. It has completed a successful 1440 orbits around Earth traveling at a rate of 18,000 miles per hour which took the satellite about 96 munities to successfully go through each orbit.. Also, with the satellite being only about twenty three inches in diameter the launch mass was only measured at 83.60. It also had the capability to transmit frequencies signals at a rate of 20 and 40 …show more content…

Soon after the Sputnik 1 mission came to and end, the Soviets decided to send yet another fascinating satellite into Earth’s orbit. This satellite was simply known as Sputnik 2. On November 3, 1957 the USSR officially launched the Sputnik 2 into orbit. This satellite had gone through many techonological devlepopletmsn and advanmetns compared to the original Sputnik 1. The Sputnik 2 had the capability and capacity to hold a passenger! Although it wasn’t a human passenger they were able to send a living dog named Laika into orbit as well. This satellite was measured with a 13 feet capsule with around 6.6 feet as the base diameter. It traveled in orbit for 162 days in which the satellite was was able to complete approximations 2000 orbits. Since the Sputnik 2 was much larger in size than the original Sputnik 1, the launch mass was close to 1,121 pounds. On board the satellite are many technological advancements such as a transmitter, photometer used to measuring solar radiation, and finally cosmic rays. As the satellite was in orbit, inside temperatures and increased to almost 100 degrees fareheinshit. Due to this the living passenger, Laika, only lived for a couple of hours instead of the estimated 10 days. Although there were transmitters on the satellite that let out frequency signals back down to earth, it wasn’t long after that the batteries were drained out. Although for the most part this mission was a success, the ending wasn't how it was planned to happen. The Sputnik 2 came back into Earth’s atmosphere on April 14, 1958. The mission was calculated to be only 162 days in orbit due to battery

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