Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Sputnik I
There are many great inventions you use every day. One you probably use every day is the Internet. You use it to communicate, to read, to study, and even to watch movies and television. You may use GPS, too. That's a system that helps locate people and places. The Internet and GPS both work because of satellites. Modern satellites all started with one little ball that flew into space. The little ball's name was Sputnik I.
In the 1950s, the Soviet Union and the United States were working on space travel. Both countries wanted to find a way into space. Both countries started working on a satellite. They also had to find a way to take the satellite to space.
The Soviet Union started working on its satellite called Object D. Object D became a big problem for its builders. Different groups made different parts of Object D. Some of the parts didn't fit together. The Soviet Union stopped working on Object D. They began work on a much smaller and simpler satellite.
