Former cosmonauts celebrate anniversary of Sputnik launch

Engineers, military officials and former cosmonauts today celebrated the 50th anniversary of the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, which marked the dawn of the Space Age and sparked the race to land a man on the moon.

Ceremonies were held at Russia’s cosmonaut training centre, Star City, outside Moscow and engineers were to gather at the Academy of Sciences to recall the events leading up to the October 4 1957 launch of the spiky, 184lb metal ball that beeped as it circled the globe for some 22 days.