The launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, inaugurated the Space Age in 1957. Conceptually, its origins date back to the early 20th century to the works of the Russian (and later Soviet) pseudo-scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy who came up with the first mathematical considerations on the possibility of space travel using liquid propellant rocket engines. There was, however, a great deal of gap between theory and practice, and it wasn't until the late 1940s that rocket technology was mature enough to be considered as a solution to the goal of spaceflight.
At the end of World War II, Soviet recovery teams had captured a large amount of technical material and documentation from the infamous German A4 (more widely known as the V2 or 'vengeance weapon' by the Nazis). The missile had a range of about 270 kilometers. Study of the A4 ballistic missile jump-started Soviet efforts to develop more powerful indigenously developed rockets. By combining A4 technology with domestic expertise, by 1955, Soviet rocket engineers were able to produce the R-5M strategic ballistic missile with a range of 1,200 kilometers. Most of the work on long-range ballistic missiles was concentrated at a secret institute known as Scientific-Research Institute No. 88 (NII-88, pronounced 'nee-88') located in the Kaliningrad suburb (now known as Korolev) northeast of Moscow.