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Launching Sputnik I
Sputnik-1 fascinated and frightened vast numbers of people, and it shifted America's space program into high gear. Sputnik was followed by a rapid series of achievements by the Soviet Union: the first lunar probe, first man in space, first attempts to reach Mars and Venus. -
Period: to
Space Race
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Laika
Laika was a Soviet space dog that became the first animal to orbit the Earth – as well as the first animal to die in orbit.
She rode to orbit in Sputnik II on the 3rd of November, 1957. Several countries issued stamps honoring Laika. -
Van Allen Belts
the Americans joined the race, when they successfully launched their Explorer I satellite, which also measured the heightened radiation levels. After Explorer III saw them as well, the American physicist James Van Allen concluded that earth is surrounded by doughnut-shaped belts of charged particles, now known as the Van Allen belts -
First communication satellite
the world's first communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The satellite was SCORE, an acronym for Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment. The satellite payload package was designed, and in large measure built, by personnel of the US Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory here at Fort Monmouth. -
Luna 1
Luna 1 was a hermetically sealed sphere with external sensors to detect radiation and magnetic fields. The boom holding the magnetometer away from the body of the spacecraft projects towards the top right with its end out of view. The other projections are radio antennae. -
Explorer 6
It was a small, spheroidal satellite designed to study trapped radiation of various energies, galactic cosmic rays, geomagnetism, radio propagation in the upper atmosphere, and the flux of micrometeorites. -
Luna 2
It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. It successfully impacted with the lunar surface east of Mare Serenitatis near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus. -
Yuri Gagrin
Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission. On April 12, 1961 he became the first human to orbit Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour. The flight lasted 108 minutes. At the highest point, Gagarin was about 327 kilometers above Earth. -
First active communications satellite
The AT&T Telstar I satellite was launched on July 10th, 1962, and later that same day transmitted the first live television images from the United States to France. Communications satellites continued to be developed, eventually making RCA's DSS system possible with the launch of a Hughes communications satellite in December 1993. -
Alouette 1
Alouette 1 was Canada's first satellite, and the first satellite constructed by a country other than the USSR or the United States. Occasionally, Alouette I is misrepresented as the third satellite successfully put in orbit, rather than being from the third country to have one of its own in space. -
Edward White II
Edward White II makes the first U.S. space walk from Gemini 4. Duration is 22 minutes -
Venera 3
a Soviet probe launched from Kazakhstan on November 15, 1965, collides with Venus, the second planet from the sun. Although Venera 3 failed in its mission to measure the Venusian atmosphere, it was the first unmanned spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet. -
Apollo 8
the second manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit; the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to Earth from another celestial body—Earth's Moon -
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 is launched, suffering an explosion in its SM oxygen tanks. Its Moon landing is aborted, and the crew, James A. Lovell, Jr., John L. Swigert, Jr. and Fred W. Haise, Jr., return safely -
Apollo's 17 Return
The command module America splashed down in the Pacific Ocean near American Samoa at 19:24:59 UTC on December 19, 1972. The recovery operation was performed by US Navy helicopter squadron HC-1, with Commander Edward E Dahill III as prime recovery pilot flying helicopter 001. Commander Dahill flew the astronauts to the nearby recovery ship USS Ticonderoga.
