SOVIET FIRES NEW SATELLITE, CARRYING DOG;
HALF-TON SPHERE IS REPORTED 900 MILES UP
ORBIT COMPLETED
Animal Still Is Alive,
Sealed in Satellite,
Moscow Thinks
Credit: Tass via The Associated Press
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON,
Sunday, Nov. 3 -- The Soviet Union announced today it had launched a
second space satellite -- this one carrying a dog. Radio signals
indicated that the animal was living, the Russians said.
A satellite six times as heavy as the one sent up Oct. 4 now is
circling the earth every hour and forty-two minutes at a height of
937 miles, Moscow said. This means that the speed is nearly 18,000
miles an hour for the 1,110-pound satellite.
The dog was reported hermetically sealed in a container equipped
with an air-conditioning system.
Moscow Radio said data received from the second satellite
indicated the "functioning of scientific instruments and
control of the living activities of the animal are taking place
normally."
First Trip Reported
The new satellite carries transmitting equipment and apparatus for
measuring cosmic rays, temperature and pressure. It also carries
equipment for reporting the condition of the dog.
It first passed over the Soviet capital at 11:20 P.M. Eastern
Standard Time last night and then completed its first trip around
the earth over Moscow at 1:05 A.M. today, the Soviet Union reported.
The announcement said the second satellite was "dedicated to
the fortieth anniversary of the great October revolution,"
which the Communist world will celebrate in Moscow beginning next
Thursday.
The new earth satellite is completing its orbit in about seven
minutes more than the original Sputnik, still circling the earth.
Japan Receives Signals
Moscow said the second sphere was sending out two radio signals.
One, like the "beep" signal transmitted by the first
satellite, is on a frequency of 20.005 megacycles. The other signal,
at 40.002 megacycles, is a continuous note.
In Tokyo the Japan Broadcasting Corporation announced that radio
signals from the second satellite were being heard. The corporation
picked up the signals twenty-three minutes after Moscow's
announcement. The "beep" was at intervals of three-tenths
of a second.
A three-stage rocket shoved the original satellite into its
orbit. The first Moscow announcement of the second sphere did not
explain how it had been sent up.
Although the announcement of the satellite's passing over Moscow
indicated an interval of one hour and of forty-five minutes, Moscow
Radio said the orbit would be one hour and forty-two minutes.
Moscow Radio last week announced that an animal-carrying
satellite soon would be launched.
The Oct. 27 broadcast said preparations for launching a new baby
moon were near completion and that a team of dogs had been
conditioned to provide the first passengers to rocket off into
space.
The announcement was followed by a later broadcast direct from
the laboratory where the dogs were being trained.
The radio audience was introduced to a "small, shaggy dog
named Kudryavka," which barked into the microphone.
The Soviet Union announced Oct. 4 that it had the world's first
artificial moon streaking around the globe 560 miles out in space.
The Russians said the first satellite had been launched the day
before by a multiple-stage rocket that shot the satellite upward at
about five miles a second. Scientists around the world traced the
first satellite in following days. Its characteristic radio signal
-- "beep-beep-beep" -- provided the basis of tracking. The
radio transmitter has since gone dead.
President Eisenhower, at an Oct. 9 new conference, said of the
military significance of Russia's first satellite: "That does
not raise my apprehension, not one iota."
On Oct. 13 the Russians hinted at a permanent earth satellite
that would last for hundreds of years.
An article in Pravda, broadcast by Moscow radio, said such a
project was plausible in the light of available data about the
density of the upper layers of the atmosphere.
"It is completely realistic to speak about the launching of
a satellite which will exist for tens and hundreds of years,"
the article added. "Such a satellite would be virtually a
permanent earth satellite."
A Soviet engineer, K. Malyutin, predicted on Oct. 26 that a
satellite would be launched that would circle the earth forever and
provide a platform for space ships.
Mr. Malyutin, writing in the Soviet magazine Aviation, did not
say when such a missile could be launched. He observed, however,
that "contemporary levels of rocket technique allow the
assumption that launching such a sputnik is fully realistic."
In announcing the launching of the first earth satellite ever put
in a globe-circling orbit under man's controls, the Soviet Union
claimed a victory over the United States.
The
New York Times - Page One
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