1957-001B
After the first successful flight of the R-7 (8K71) ICBM in August 1957, Korol"ev got permission to launch a satellite with it. The first satellite was called PS-1, or Prosteyshiy Sputnik 1, the ``Simplest Satellite''. The name contrasted with the original plan to launch a much larger and more sophisticated satellite known as Object D (see below). PS-1 was a simple sphere with a mass of 81 kg, and carried a temperature sensor and a radio transmitter. It was launched from Baikonur at 4 seconds past 1928 UTC on October 4, 1957. The two-stage 8K71 rocket is known in this context as the Sputnik or 8K71PS launch vehicle.
The 8K71PS, serial number M1-1PS, took off from pad 1 at NIIP-5. Almost immediately it ran into problems: the Blok-G strapon engine was slow in building up thrust, which could have triggered an automatic launch abort. A tank control system failure at T+16 seconds resulted in excessive kerosene consumption and depletion resulting in shutdown one second prior to the planned 4min 56s cutoff time. The resulting apogee was about 80 km short of the planned one.
The sphere was placed in orbit around the earth with a perigee of 215 km and an apogee of 939 km. The inclination of its orbit to the Earth's equator was 65.1 degrees. The satellite, referred to at the time in the Soviet press as the First ISZ ( Isskusstvenniy Sputnik Zemli or Artificial Earth SatelliteISZ, 1-y and in English-speaking countries as Sputnik One, transmitted its `beep beep' radio signal until October 27. Friction with the upper atmosphere caused the satellite to reenter on Jan 4, 1958. The much larger Blok-A (sometimes also called Blok-Ts, for `central stage') rocket core from the Sputnik launch vehicle was also placed in orbit, and reentered on December 1. Following the suggestion of Fred Whipple at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) assigned the designation 1957 Alpha to the first satellite launch of year 1957; the first object to be seen by observers on the ground was the huge rocket stage, and this got the designation 1957 Alpha 1, leaving the payload itself to get the designation 1957 Alpha 2. (This system of international designations remained in force until 1963, when the Greek letters were replaced by Arabic numerals, and the numerals for individual objects were replaced by letters. Thus the 82nd launch of 1965 was 1965-82, and the pieces of that launch were labelled 82A, 82B, ... 82Z, 82AA, 82 AB, ... 82AZ, 82 BA,.., with the letters I and O excluded to avoid confusion with the numbers one and zero). Another designation system was the NORAD satellite catalog number, which is purely numerical: the rocket stage was catalog number 1, and the PS-1 satellite was catalog number 2. A nose cone covered the satellite at launch; it separated at orbit insertion and was observed as 1957 Alpha 3, but it was not given a NORAD catalog number. The final stage was observed to be magnitude -2 to +2 by visual observers, with the satellite being mag 4 to 6.
Mass of the final stage in orbit was 7790 kg according to the mass table in the 1985 Glushko encyclopedia.
| PS-1 | |||
| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 Oct 4 | 1928:04 | Launch by 8K71PS | KB LC1 |
| 1930:00 | T+116s Blok-BVGD sep | ||
| 1932:58 | Blok-A cutoff, orbit insertion | ||
| 1933:18? | GO sep? | ||
| 1933:18 | Blok-A sep | 215 x 939 x 65.1 | |
| 1957 Oct 27 | End of transmissions | ||
| 1957 Dec 1 | Blok A reentered over E Siberia/Alaska | ||
| 1958 Jan 4 | Reentered | ||
