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Sputnik-1 model sold for 850 thousand dollars at US auction

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Sputnik-1 model sold for 850 thousand dollars at US auction


28.09.2017

NSSDC, NASA[1]//wikimedia.orgOnly working model of the first Soviet satellite was sold at Bonhams annual space sale auction, TASS informs. The buyer who preferred to stay anonymous paid around eight hundred and fifty thousand US dollars for it, it exceeds the initial price by almost five and a half times.

The auction was conducted in New York and broadcasted online.

This satellite was launched into space by Soviet Union in autumn 1957. Later it was used for testing. The model represents a two-meter ball made of aluminum with four aerials installed. It has been a symbol of the first success of Russian space industry for almost sixty years in the whole world. It weighs almost forty-five kilos. OKB-1 engineering bureau manufactured the satellite. Now it turned into Rocket and Space Corporation Energia named after a key figure in the Soviet space programme Sergei Korolev.

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