The Satellite's Week

The art of satellite watching improved last week--with two satellites to watch and more time to practice. The Smithsonian's observatory at Cambridge reported that it has pinpointed both Soviet satellites accurately enough to backtrack by computer and find the hour when they were launched. Sputnik 1, the observatory said, took to space on Oct. 4 at 8 a.m. E.S.T. Sputnik 111 was launched in the middle of the afternoon on Nov. 1. Its orbit is more elliptical, rising higher and sinking lower, than the orbit of Sputnik 1.

Since a perfectly circular orbit is a bull's-eye in satellite launching, the Russian missilemen did not do quite so well with their second satellite.

The radio transmitter of Sputnik 1 worked for three weeks, but the transmitter of Sputnik II went silent after seven days. Astronomer John Shakeshaft of Cambridge, England watched it pass overhead but got no radio signal. This might mean that the apparatus had broken down, but a statement by the Russians that they had completed their observations hinted that the stoppage was intended.

Reports were conflicting about the fate of the dog riding in Sputnik 11. For six days after the launching, Russian scientists reported that she was well and that data about her physical condition were being radioed to earth. On the seventh day the Russians reported as usual on the motions of Sputnik II but did not mention its famed passenger. Two days later Italy's Communist newspaper L'Unita reported that the dog had been killed by a drug in her last portion of food.

Despite hints from individual Russians, there has been no official Russian promise to bring the dog back to earth, either dead or alive. Dr. John P. Hagen, director of U.S. Project Vanguard, thinks the Russians never intended to. Even if already dead, the dog cannot merely be pushed into space like the dog in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (see cut). Rocket "braking" is necessary. Dr. Hagen believes that the weight of Sputnik 11 is not enough to include the rocket fuel that would be needed to check the speed of the satellite and bring the dog down through the atmosphere.

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