What happens if an object has a negative acceleration?

i don't know that i agree with that but what's the question ?

the only real purpose of sputnik 1 was to beat the us into space. we were getting close to launching a useful satellite, explorer 1 - which launched on january 31, 1958. the ussr had to beat that, so they launched sputnik 1 on october 4, 19

answer; how far out of place which the object finished relative to the starting location;