‘An icon of Soviet space exploration’: the Russian stray dog ​​who put humans into orbit

After the successful launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957, which put the world’s first artificial satellite into orbit, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the new mission. “He said, ‘We didn’t think you could launch a satellite before the Americans, but you did,'” engineer Georgi Grechko, who worked on the Sputnik I and II launch team, told the BBC in 2019.