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dated October 6, 1957: Russia launches satellite

Russia on October 4 rocketed an earth satellite into outer space and it is now circling the world 560 miles up once every 95 minutes. An announcement from Tass, the Soviet news agency, said the satellite, about 23 inches in diameter, could be observed in the rays of the rising and setting sun with ordinary binoculars or spy glasses. The satellite is travelling its course on an elliptical trajectory at about 17,000 miles an hour. The American National Broadcasting Company announced from New York that it had picked up the radio signals given off by the Soviet artificial satellite. A similar announcement came from the BBC, London, which said that its monitoring service at Tatsfield, Kent, picked up a radio signal from the satellite. The signal was on the wavelength indicated by Moscow Radio. A National Broadcasting Company commentator said the Russians had won what had been described as a friendly contest with the US in the International Geophysical Year. A London report said Russia’s man-made moon was both seen and heard by official watchers and radio stations as it hurtled through outer space once round the earth every 95 minutes. Mr. Larry Ochs, head of an observatory team in Columbus, Ohio, reported having seen the satellite through a telescope at 8-58 a.m. IST on October 5. But a 12-year-old boy scout had the glory of being the first to claim to have seen it through binoculars nearly two hours earlier at his home in Charleston, Virginia. He described it as a “bright red spot”.

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