Sputnik-1 was the first artificial Earth satellite.

The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957.

The satellite travelled at about 29,000 kilometres per hour
(18,000 mph; 8,100 m/s),
taking 96.2 minutes to complete
each orbit.

It orbited for three weeks before its batteries died and
then orbited silently for two months before it fell back into the atmosphere on the 25th December 1957.