The race for space changed in 1970, when Japan successfully launched its first satellite on 11 February and China followed on 24 April. Japan and China became the world’s fourth and fifth space powers, after the Soviet Union in 1957, the United States in 1958, and France in 1965.
Ohsumi, Japan’s first satellite, “is one of the few cases in the world in which a satellite was successfully developed for non-military purposes as part of academic research conducted by a university institute.”
Dong Fang Hong 1 (also known as China 1 or PRC 1) was China’s first satellite. It broadcast “The East Is Red, a song that was the de facto national anthem of the People’s Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.”
Today, most of the satellites in space are US in origin.
