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were tinkering with the final modifications to its smaller, stubbier nose cone. The alterations gave the now ninety-six-foot rocket a stouter, more matronly look, but PS-1, Tikhonravov’s tiny prostreishy sputnik, or “simplest satellite,” did not require the same large and elongated thermal shield as a five-ton thermonuclear warhead that would reenter the searing atmosphere. The warhead’s cumbersome radio-guidance targeting system had also been removed, shaving another four feet off the final package, since it too was no longer necessary. The satellite, after all, was not being aimed at an American city; with luck, it would never touch solid ground again. To achieve orbital velocity, Glushko’s central sustainer core engine was being recalibrated to fire until it ran out of fuel, rather than to cut off at a predetermined point along a ballistic trajectory, and a new, more potent mix of hydrogen peroxide was being introduced to drive its turbo pumps faster.

Throughout the modifications, Korolev anxiously paced the enormous hangar like an expectant father in the delivery room. “Silence fell whenever the Chief Designer appeared,” Colonel Mikhail Rebrov remembered. “Korolev was more exacting and strict than ever.” Every so often he checked on Tikhonravov’s baby, which sat on a felt-covered cradle in a sealed-off “clean room,” Tyura-Tam’s equivalent of a maternity ward. “Coats, gloves, it’s a must,” Korolev insisted, as he inspected the shiny satellite. Swaddled in a black velvet diaper, the little orb had spring-loaded antennae that dangled over the sides like electronic umbilical cords. To ensure its chances of survival, Tikhonravov had pressurized the sphere with nitrogen, a neutral gas that prevented corrosion. He had also installed a miniaturized climate-control system; it would heat or cool PS-1’s innards to maintain a constant temperature of sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, which would ensure that its transmitters operated properly regardless of the external environment. No one knew for certain how the radio equipment—how anything man-made, for that matter—would react in the radiation-laden, zero-gravity vacuum of space, and that was another reason Korolev had insisted on the obsessive polishing of PS-l’s thin aluminum skin. He did not want to risk the heat transfers or fluctuations that could result from an uneven surface, and wanted to make sure solar rays were reflected, not absorbed, by the gleaming shell. It was during one of these final, frenzied cleanings that the senior OKB-1 engineer Anatoly Abramov witnessed a typical Korolev moment. “I saw a crowd gathered around the satellite and I heard screaming,” he recalled. “As I got closer I found myself at the receiving end of one of Korolev’s famous tirades. I immediately realized what was wrong. The satellite stand was covered in felt to prevent scratching, but the felt had been tacked on with little nails rather than glued. The nail heads weren’t actually protruding or touching the surface of the satellite, but it hadn’t occurred to us that using tacks wasn’t the brightest idea until Korolev rubbed all our noses in it.”

The Chief Designer was next sent into a frenzy by a message that arrived from Moscow on the morning of October 2. Apparently an unscheduled meeting of the IGY was being convened in Washington on October 6. “There should be an American report of a satellite over the planet,” the IGY’s Soviet representative had cabled Moscow. In fact, “Satellite over the Planet” was merely the title of the keynote speech. Either the Soviet representative got confused or something got lost in translation, and Korolev panicked.

“What does it mean?” he demanded, the color draining from his face. Were the Americans planning a launch? Were they planning to announce it on the sixth? “Maybe it’s just a routine update,” he tried to console himself. “Or maybe not,” he said after a moment of anxious reflection, “maybe this will be a report of a fait accompli.” Korolev was visibly shaken. A U.S. satellite might already be circling the earth by the time he attempted to launch PS-1.