Space exploration time line

By Ds20289

  • First telescope

    Hans Lippershey (1570 – buried 29 September 1619), also known as Johann Lippershey or Lipperhey, was a German-Dutch spectacle-maker. He is commonly associated with the invention of the telescope,[1] although it is unclear if he was the first to build one.

  • First telescope

    Galileo Galilei in the summer of 1609 at the University of Padua near Venice.

  • First info on the moons features

    In 1753 the Croatian Jesuit and astronomer Roger Joseph Boscovich discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon.

  • More info on the moons features

    In 1824 Franz von Gruithuisen explained the formation of craters as a result of meteorite strikes.[8]

  • First human in space

    9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Russian Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.

  • First probe on the moon

    The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made an impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959.

  • First probe to land on the moon

    on February 3, 1966. It was proven that a lunar lander would not sink into a thick layer of dust, as had been feared. The first artificial satellite of the Moon was the Soviet probe Luna 10 (launched March 31, 1966).

  • First orbit around the moon

    On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, became the first human beings to enter lunar orbit and see the far side of the Moon in person.

  • First man on the moon

    Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first human to walk on the lunar surface was Neil Armstrong, commander of the U.S. mission Apollo 11

  • Last man on the moon

    To date, the last human to stand on the Moon was Eugene Cernan, who as part of the mission Apollo 17 walked on the Moon in December 1972. See also: A full list of lunar Apollo astronauts.

  • Japan sends up probe

    In 1990 Japan visited the Moon with the Hiten spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the mission

  • First probe on Mars

    On June 2, 2003, the European Space Agency's Mars Express set off from Baikonur Cosmodrome to Mars. The Mars Express craft consists of the Mars Express Orbiter and the lander Beagle 2. Although the landing probe was not designed to move, it carried a digging device and the smallest mass spectrometer created to date, as well as a range of other devices, on a robotic arm in order to accurately analyse soil beneath the dusty surface.

  • 3D images

    The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called SMART 1 on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take three-dimensional X-ray and infrared imagery of the lunar surface.

  • NASA sends probe to take photos of the moon

    on June 18, 2009, which has collected imagery of the Moon's surface.

  • Better landing gear

    The European Space Agency has also announced its intention to send a manned mission to the Moon, as part of the Aurora programme. In September 2010, the agency introduced a "Lunar lander" programme with a target of autonomous mission to the moon in 2018.[33]