In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. It was the first satellite in Earth's orbit. Or was it? For over a hundred ...

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world with its surprise launch of Sputnik 1. See how the historic satellite launch worked in this SPACE.com infographic.

The Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 satellite took to the skies on Oct. 4, 1957, launching the space age and the Cold War space race. Here are a few fun facts you may not know about Sputnik 1 and its ...

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik , the world's first artificial satellite , forever altering the course of history and marking the beginning of the Space Age . The dream of ...

The Soviets called it sputnik, meaning simply “satellite” or “fellow traveler.” But to American space-watchers of 60 years ago, the satellite that launched on Oct. 4, 1957 had many ...

Since the Soviets launched the first satellite in 1957, humans have put tens of thousands of objects in Earth’s orbit. Each dot represents one of 9,000 satellites orbiting the Earth.

In 1957, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Since then, the number of objects humans have hurled toward the stars has soared to the thousands. As those ...

In June 1957, launch of the U.S. Vanguard 1 satellite was thought imminent. That month, two engineers proposed that, after Vanguard reached Earth orbit, "the next interesting target in space ...