Fifty years ago Space Age was symbolically ushered in by the broadcast ‘Beep - Beep- Beep’ from the two radio transmitters of the Sputnik - 1. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial satellite SPUTNIK into the orbit around the Earth. It was 500 miles up ,travelling at 18,000 miles an hour and encircled the globe every 96 minutes.

It flew over United States of America seven times a day and it goes without saying that the sound of the incessant beep disturbed that nation which was at cold war with the Soviet Union.

Many people did not know how to think of an artificial satellite in orbit. It was a mystery. What an object of such a heavy weight and size was doing up there? Are the Russians looking down on us? These were the common questions asked.

Senator Lyndon Johnson added that the Russians have jumped ahead of United States in the conquest of Space and "Soon, they will be dropping bombs on us from space.” Today we know how useful this first step in the launch of a spacecraft in space, has been to human society.
Very soon the US launched successfully its first satellite Vanguard 1 on March 17, 1958.
The Soviet Union no doubt launched the first satellite Sputnik 1, but the first active satellite in geosynchronous orbit was launched by the USA in February 1963 and was called Syncom 1. The first geostationary satellite with communication capabilities ,Syncom 3 was launched a year later.
 The launch of geostationary satellites opened a whole new concept of usage of large portion of space around the planet Earth for applications of satellite technology for the benefit of mankind and society. The satellites were launched for intercontinental communications , for navigation, for weather forecasting, for entertainment on TV and Radio.
However, soon the scientists and engineers realized that space is not a benign environment. It is continuously changing and dynamic in nature and can wreak havoc on the operations of technical systems.
For example in January 1997 CNN financial network reported Telestar 401 out of services, AT&T (the satellite operator) tried to establish contact with the satellite but the attempt was unsuccessful. The company incurred a loss of millions of dollars.
Another famous example is of 1989 when a giant Communication satellite with antennae pointing towards USA and Europe suddenly lost attitude control and began to tumble down rapidly causing  failures of TV stations, weather forecasting also became impossible. The signals from aircrafts went in the wrong directions causing risk to the passengers aboard. The satellite anomalies were finally attributed to the conditions in space created mainly due to activities on the Sun.

It finally became apparent that mankind has to understand the space in a better way.

Hannes Alfven, Swedish Nobel Laureate, regarded as father of modern space science, regards the dawn of the space age as revolution in science comparable to the introduction of the telescope by Galileo. The spacecraft is capable of observing a wide range of physical parameter in comparison to the limited "visual light Universe " dependent on ground based telescopes whose observations are attenuated by the earth’s atmosphere.
Fifty years ago it was also believed that the Earth with its atmospheric and ionospheric layers rotated around the Sun in an infinite space which was a near vacuum.

With the dawn of satellite era this picture has changed entirely, now we know from the satellite observations that Earth is placed within an enclosed comet-like cavity called the magnetosphere, extending to about 64000 Km. from the centre of the Earth on the side facing the Sun and extending like a tail engulfing the moon on the far side.

The boundary between the near-Earth space and the outer space is called the magnetopause. This is the magnetic boundary formed by interaction between the Solar Wind (streams of charged particles emanating from the Sun in radial direction) and the magnetic field of the Earth.

In fact the magnetosphere protects the life on Earth from the hazardous radiations from the Sun and thus can be called the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ of our own space.

The magnetosphere is by no means a static region. The Sun is the source of energy. This energy drives various current systems, electric fields, energetic charged particles interacting with the magnetic field of the Earth, causing magnetic storms. These storms and the energetic particles can affect the satellites causing damage to its components and in many cases causing the failure.

The satellite anomalies shown by the Canadian Satellite Anik E-1 and Anik E- 2 in January 1994 have now been attributed to the increase in charged particle density of the magnetosphere.

The television, radio, telephone and scientific operations were affected for hours to days by these spacecraft anomalies as Anik spacecraft provide critical communication functions for Canada.

As human society has become dependent on various sophisticated space-systems, the design, development and operations of these require up-to-date knowledge of conditions of our space environment. This necessity has led to the emergence of the science of "Space Weather."

There is a quest to understand and to be able to forecast space weather conditions which will enable companies to develop methods and materials to save spacecraft from damage.

The dawn of space age has bestowed many benefits on the human society and has led to a vast understanding of space. But with tendency of mankind to misuse knowledge, the use of space and satellite technology can pose many risks to human race. For example, recently on January 11 of the current year China destroyed its retired weather satellite weighing 850 Kg, Feng Yun-I C by shooting it with a ground to space medium range ballistic missile. This sparked world - wide concern about space debris and renewed the threat of space arms race.
The dependence of many countries on the commercial and weather satellites in low- Earth orbit, which can be very much affected by the debris ,has led the United Nations to form a committee on the peaceful use of Outer Space. In a meeting in February of this year a draft guidelines in space was discussed. A grave concern was that low Earth orbit might soon suffer from the Kessler Syndrome. This means that the amount of orbital debris can become so high that collisions cause a self generating cascade that could limit satellite and human spaceflight operations.

All nations have become aware of the danger of space debris. It is important therefore that all countries should aspire to cooperate for the use of space for peaceful purposes and should bar any future testing or use of debris-creating weapons. They should also make an agreement to not to indulge in participating in any arms race in the outer space, surrounding our beautiful Earth.