On October 4, 1957, Sputnik-1 (Iskusstvennyy Sputnik Zemli, "artificial companion of the Earth") entered orbit: an event that would possess the extraordinary capacity to inaugurate a new era, namely the Space Age. The small Soviet metal sphere, with a diameter of just 56 centimeters, orbited the planet at 29,000 km/h, transmitting a simple yet memorable "beep... beep" that the entire world paused to listen to.

The radio signal, beyond being a monumental scientific experiment, concealed the underlying technological capability of the Soviet Union, now in possession of a formidable asset that could potentially strike any point on the globe.

It is within this scenario that space was poised to become a domain of strategic, technological, and ideological competition.

The launch of Sputnik-1 did not merely transform the collective perception of space: it radically altered the landscape of geopolitics. It accelerated the development of satellite infrastructures, laying the foundations for a new operational domain—one that today continues to shape and refine the balance of power between the United States and Russia, now joined by an ever-growing number of new actors.