First Satellite

Since the Soviet Union successfully launched the first man made satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957, about 5,000 more satellites have been put into orbit around the Earth. About 2,000 of these are active and although the rest are now disfunctional, they remain in orbit, together with parts from all the rockets that carried them there. These remnants are often referred to as space junk, space trash, or orbital debris.