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First satellite launched
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I on October 4th, 1957. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball weighed 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
First human in space
The first person in outer space was Yuri Gagarin. -
First American in space
The first American in outer space was Alan Shepard -
First man to circle the Earth
John Glenn was the first American man to circle the Earth. -
First space walk
In March 1965, at the age of 30, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk in history, beating out American rival Ed White on Gemini 4 by almost three months. -
Apollo 1 mission
this mission was to be the first crewed flight of apollo, and was scheduled to launch Feb. 21, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the command module, or CM. -
Apollo 8 mission
It was the second human spaceflight mission in the U.S. Apollo Space Program. It became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth's moon, orbit it, and return safely to Erath. -
Apollo 11
First lunar module toland on the moon. Crew: Neil Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins. -
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 was to be the third mission to land on the Moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during flight and the crew were forced to orbit the Moon and return to Earth without landing. -
Apollo 17
Scientific objectives of the Apollo 17 mission included, geological surveying and sampling of materials and surface features in a preselected area of the Taurus-Littrow region. -
Mariner 10 Launched
Mariner 10 was the only mission to Mercury until NASA's MESSENGER mission more than 30 years later. It was also the first spacecraft to reach one planet by using the gravity of another planet (in this case, Venus) to alter its speed and trajectory. This has become an extremely important technique. -
Voyager 2 launched
Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977 to study the outer planets. Part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, on a trajectory that took longer to reach Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with Uranus and Neptune. It is the only spacecraft to have ever visited either of the ice giants. -
First space shutlle launch
The first launch of the Space Shuttle occurred on 12 April 1981, exactly 20 years after the first manned space flight, when the orbiter Columbia, with two crew members, astronauts John W. Young, commander, and Robert L. Crippen -
First American woman in space
Sally Ride was the first American woman to go into space. -
Galileo launched
Galileo was an unmanned spacecraft that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies. Named after the astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and entry probe. It was launched on October 18, 1989, carried by Space Shuttle Atlantis, on the STS-34 mission. -
Hubble
The purpose of Hubble was to gather light from cosmic objects so scientists can better understand the universe around us. Hubble is in space, astronomers are on Earth. -
International space station construction finished
Zarya, the first ISS module, was launched by a Proton rocket on 20 November 1998. -
First tourist in space
Dennis Tito was the first tourist in space -
Columbia disaster
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. -
First launch of SpaceShipOne
The SpaceShipOne is a suborbital air-launched spaceplane that completed the first manned private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service. -
New horizons launched
New Horizons launched on Jan. 19, 2006; it swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015, culminating with Pluto closest approach on July 14, 2015. As part of an extended mission, pending NASA approval, the spacecraft is expected to head farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine another of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in that vast region, at least a billion miles beyond -
First Chinese walk space
Zhai Zhigang was the first Chinese person to walk in space, marking the highlight of his country's third manned mission. -
Last space shuttle launch
STS-135 (ISS assembly flight ULF7)was the 135th and final mission of the American Space Shuttle program. It used the orbiter Atlantis and hardware originally processed for the STS-335 contingency mission, which was not flown. -
Curiosity Mars landing
Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, at 15:02 UTC aboard the MSL spacecraft and landed on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012. -
New Horizons reaches Pluto
New Horizons launched on Jan. 19, 2006; it swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015, culminating with Pluto closest approach on July 14, 2015. -
Challenger disaster
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members, which included five NASA astronauts and two Payload Specialists. -
Hubble brought back down
If they do nothing, the Hubble Space Telescope will fall to Earth in 2024.
