After the successful Sputnik I launch on 4 October 1957, which sent the world’s first man-made satellite into orbit, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev had ordered the new mission. “He said: ‘We didn’t believe you could launch a satellite before the Americans – but you did it,'” engineer Georgi Grechko, who worked on the launch team for Sputnik I and II, told the BBC in 2019. “‘Now,’ [Khruschev] said, and this was mid-October, ‘For the anniversary of the revolution on 7 November, I want you to launch something new.'”
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