What was the first artificial satellite?

What Sputnik did

Sputnik 1 orbited Earth about 1,440 times over three months before falling back and burning up in the atmosphere. Its batteries lasted 21 days. Scientists used its signal and orbit to learn about the upper atmosphere and radio waves in space. Sputnik means “fellow traveler” in Russian.

The Space Race begins

1. October 1957Sputnik 1 shocks the US and the world
2. November 1957Sputnik 2 carries Laika, a dog, the first animal to orbit Earth
3. January 1958The US launches its first satellite, Explorer 1, which discovers the Van Allen radiation belts
4. July 1958NASA is founded
5. 1961Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space
6. 1969The US lands astronauts on the Moon

Why it mattered

Sputnik showed that the Soviet Union had rockets powerful enough to reach orbit, and possibly to carry weapons across continents. In the US, the shock led to new spending on science education, the creation of NASA, and an agency that later helped develop the early internet.

Satellites today

There are now more than 10,000 active satellites in orbit, used for:

• GPS navigation
• Weather forecasting
• Phone, TV and internet connections
• Earth observation and science

Large networks like Starlink make up a growing share, raising concerns about space debris and light pollution for astronomers.

Twelve years after Sputnik, humans walked on the Moon; see who was the first person on the Moon. For space telescopes in orbit, see the first space telescope.