Originally Posted by sarettah

Chief engineer of Sputnik was a Ukrainian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite

The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, and initiating the Soviet Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer (there is a crater on the lunar far side which bears his name). This in turn triggered the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev

Korolev was born in Zhytomyr, modern Ukraine

.