At the Tyuratam launch site in the Kazakh desert, Sergei Korolev's team readied a polished 58-centimeter aluminum sphere fitted with four antennas. Sputnik 1 would lift off in the early hours of October 4, becoming Earth's first artificial satellite. The frantic final checks of October 3 capped a secretive crash program that outpaced American efforts and ignited the Space Race.
Sergei Korolev, the chief designer whose identity the Soviet state kept secret even from its own press, had originally planned a much larger, instrument-laden satellite. Fearing the Americans might beat them into orbit, he ordered a stripped-down backup built in weeks: a simple sphere carrying only a radio transmitter and batteries, nicknamed PS-1, "Prosteyshiy Sputnik" — simplest satellite.
Through October 3, technicians at the remote Tyuratam range swept the site for late defects, fueled the modified R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile that would serve as the booster, and rehearsed the countdown one final time. Korolev, a former Gulag prisoner rehabilitated to lead the Soviet rocket program, reportedly slept little that night.
The launch early the next morning sent the satellite into an elliptical orbit, its radio beeping on frequencies amateur radio operators worldwide could pick up. That simple beep, audible on ordinary receivers, did more to alarm American policymakers than any classified intelligence report. Within a year it had produced NASA, a crash in American science education funding, and a space rivalry that would run for decades.