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Space photos of the day
On April 12, 1961, the era of human spaceflight began when the Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his Vostock I spacecraft. The flight lasted 108 minutes.
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NASA
SOVIET FIRES SATELLITE INTO SPACE: IT IS CIRCLING THE GLOBE AT 18,000 M.P.H.; SPHERE TRACKED IN 4 CROSSINGS OVER U.S.
Moscow, Saturday, Oct. 5--The Soviet Union announced this morning that it successfully launched a man-made earth satellite into space yesterday.
The Russians calculated the satellite's orbit at a maximum of 560 miles above the earth and its speed at 18,000 miles an hour.
The official Soviet news agency Tass said the artificial moon, with a diameter of twenty- two inches and a weight of 184 pounds, was circling the earth once every hour and thirty- five minutes. This means more than fifteen times a day.
Two radio transmitters, Tass said, are sending signals continuously on frequencies of 20.005 and 40.002 megacycles. These signals were said to be strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. The trajectory of the satellite is being tracked by numerous scientific stations.
