 The designations Sputnik 29, and later Sputnik 22, were used by the United States Naval Space Command to identify the spacecraft in its Satellite Situation Summary documents, since the Soviet Union did not release the internal designations of its spacecraft at that time, and had not assigned it an official name due to its failure to depart geocentric orbit.A United States Ballistic Missile Early Warning System station in Alaska detected the debris from the launch, and initially identified it as incoming nuclear warheads, since the launch had occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis.The spacecraft carried two instruments on board