Sputnik-1 Full-Scale Test Model

A twin built to keep the radio honest

Sputnik-1 was simple on purpose: a polished metal ball 58 centimeters across, weighing 83.6 kilograms, with four antennas trailing behind it to broadcast radio pulses. The problem engineers had to solve on the ground was whether its transmitter would interfere with anything else, and whether anything else would interfere with it.

To find out, they built full-scale laboratory models for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and electromagnetic interference (EMI) testing. According to one account, the lab models were made by OKB-1 together with NII-885, the radio institute directed by Mikhail Ryazansky, and the first was introduced on February 15, 1957. The 2017 sale materials say only three were produced before Sputnik-1 flew.

This example carries the serial number 0K6-1/002/1957, the second of the series. It is a polished aluminum sphere about 23 inches in diameter with four external antennas, mounted on a manganese brass stand with an anti-static O-ring.

The chief designer nobody could name

OKB-1, Experimental Design Bureau-1, later became the S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia. Its chief was Sergei Korolev, born January 12, 1907, in Zhytomyr. Arrested in Stalin's purges on June 27, 1938, he was tortured, sent to the Kolyma labor camps and lost most of his teeth to scurvy before he was moved to a prison design bureau in 1940. He was released in 1944, but the charges were not formally dropped until 1957, the year of Sputnik.

Korolev led the R-7, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, whose first successful test came on August 21, 1957. Six weeks later an R-7 carried Sputnik into orbit. He went on to run the launches of Laika and Yuri Gagarin. For security his identity was kept secret, and the public learned his name only from his Pravda obituary after he died on January 14, 1966.

October 4, 1957

Sputnik-1 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on October 4, 1957, at 19:28:34 UTC. Its transmitters on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz could be picked up by anyone with a shortwave receiver. The silver-zinc batteries lasted 22 days, until October 26, after 326 orbits. The silent sphere kept circling for three months and reentered the atmosphere on January 4, 1958, after 1,440 orbits.

In the United States the launch set off the Sputnik crisis, leading to the creation of NASA and ARPA, later DARPA. On November 3 the Soviets launched Sputnik 2 with the dog Laika aboard, and on December 6 the first American attempt to launch a satellite, Vanguard TV3, blew up on the pad.

That autumn America was also living through the Little Rock Nine crisis, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Broadway opening of West Side Story. Leave It to Beaver premiered on CBS the same day Sputnik launched.

From a Soviet lab to a New York saleroom

This model came from the collection of Heinz Miller in Austria. It was offered at an air and space sale in New York on September 27, 2017, a week before the 60th anniversary of the launch, together with a vintage Tesla Maj 620A broadcast receiver made in Prague around 1955-56.

An unidentified telephone bidder won it. The auctioneer noted the bidder seemed to hold it at $700,000; with buyer's premium the price was $847,500, the top lot of a sale that totaled $1,221,888.

It was not the first of the series to sell. Another lab model, numbered 003, sold at auction in New York on July 20, 2016, for $269,000. The 2017 result was more than three times that.

How many exist, and where

The 2017 sale materials counted only a handful of vintage Sputnik-1 replicas: three in private hands, one at the Energia Corporate Museum outside Moscow and one at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Another report placed one in the private collection of Richard Garriott, acquired in 2008.

One reference lists the lab models by number: 001 is at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin and was displayed in 2007 for the 50th anniversary; 002 is this one; 003 is the one sold in 2016. The Seattle example is described there as a non-functional mockup.

Accounts of which models still work do not agree. The 2016 sale described model 003 as the only one of four known examples that was functional, while the 2017 sale described this model as having a live transmitter able to send Sputnik's tone. Readers should treat claims of 'the only working Sputnik' with care.

The numbers

Launch

October 4, 1957, 19:28:34 UTC, Baikonur Cosmodrome, R-7 rocket

Satellite

58 cm sphere, 83.6 kg, four antennas

Radio

20.005 and 40.002 MHz

Transmitting life

22 days, 326 orbits, until October 26, 1957

In orbit

1,440 orbits; reentered January 4, 1958

Timeline

1. Jan 12, 1907

   Sergei Korolev is born in Zhytomyr.

2. Jun 27, 1938

   Korolev is arrested during Stalin's purges.

3. Feb 15, 1957

   The first Sputnik-1 EMC/EMI lab model is introduced.

4. 1957

   This lab model, serial 0K6-1/002/1957, is built at OKB-1.

5. Aug 21, 1957

   The R-7 rocket flies its first successful test.

6. Oct 4, 1957

   Sputnik-1 launches from Baikonur.

7. Oct 26, 1957

   Sputnik-1's batteries die after 326 orbits.

8. Jan 4, 1958

   Sputnik-1 reenters the atmosphere after 1,440 orbits.

9. Jan 14, 1966

   Korolev dies; his name is revealed in his obituary.

10. 2007

    Lab model 001 is displayed in Berlin for Sputnik's 50th anniversary.

11. Jul 20, 2016

    Lab model 003 sells at auction in New York for $269,000.

12. Sep 27, 2017

    This model, from the Heinz Miller collection, sells at auction in New York for $847,500.

The world in 1957

• Jan 20, 1957

  Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated for a second term.

• Sep 4, 1957

  Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to block the Little Rock Nine.

• Sep 5, 1957

  Jack Kerouac's On the Road is published.

• Sep 9, 1957

  The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is enacted.

• Sep 26, 1957

  West Side Story opens on Broadway.

• Oct 4, 1957

  Leave It to Beaver premieres on CBS.

• Nov 3, 1957

  Sputnik 2 launches with the dog Laika.

• Dec 6, 1957

  Vanguard TV3, the first U.S. satellite launch attempt, explodes on the pad.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Sputnik-1 Full-Scale Test Model is number 76 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (75 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Sputnik's signal could be heard by anyone with a shortwave radio.
• This model can still send Sputnik's beep, powered by a modern 12-volt supply.
• Sputnik's chief designer had survived a Soviet labor camp, and his name was a state secret until he died.
• The sphere stayed in orbit for about two months after its radio went silent.
• A sister lab model sold for $269,000 in 2016; this one brought $847,500 the next year.
• Leave It to Beaver premiered on CBS the same day Sputnik launched.