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Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses -
First american in space
From this prestigious group of highly trained fliers, Shepard was selected to man the first space flight, with Glenn acting as his backup. Astronaut Alan B. Shepard is rescued by a U.S. Marine helicopter at the end of his sub-orbital Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) flight May 5, 1961 -
First man to circle the earth
On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space, after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and the sub-orbital missions of fellow Mercury Seven astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. -
First human in space
The first human spaceflight took place on 12 April 1961, when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made one orbit around the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, launched by the Soviet space program. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. -
First spacewalk
A cosmonaut remembers the exhilaration-and terror-of his first space mission. 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
What happened was the cabin caught on fire during a launch rehersal test. -
Apollo 8 mission
Apollo 8, the second human spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth's Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the first spaceflight that landed humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. -
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 the Earth without landing. -
Apollo 17
At 9:15:29 a.m. GMT Dec. 7, 1972, the command and service module, or CSM, was separated from the S-IVB. Approximately 15 min later, the CSM docked with the lunar module, or LM. After CSM/LM extraction from the S-IVB, the S-IVB was targeted for lunar impact, which occurred Dec. 10, at 8:32:43 p.m. The impact location was approximately 84 nautical miles northwest of the planned target point and the event was recorded by the passive seismic experiments deployed on the Apollos 12, 14, 15 and 16 miss -
Mariner 10 launched
When Mariner 10 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Nov. 3, 1973, very little was known about our neighbors in the solar system. Mariner 10 would only have quick flybys past Venus and Mercury, to be sure. But there was a lot that could be glimpsed even in a short span of time. Astronomers were curious about Mercury's high density, and what lay inside the planet's core. The running hypothesis, according to NASA, was that the planet's density was due to a high concentration of metals. But there wer -
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.[4] It is the only spacecraft to have ever visited either of the ice giants. Its primary mission ended with the exploration of the Neptunian system on October 2, 1989, after having visited the Uranian system in -
First space shuttle launched
STS-1 (Space Transportation System-1) was the first orbital spaceflight of NASA's Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on 12 April 1981 and returned on 14 April, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 37 times. Columbia carried a crew of two – mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen. It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. STS-1 was also the only maiden test flight of a new US spacecraft to carry a -
First american woman in space
On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7. As one of the three mission specialists on the STS-7 mission, she played a vital role in helping the crew deploy communications satellites, conduct experiments and make use of the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite. In this image, Dr. Ride sits in the aft flight deck mission specialist's seat during deorbit preparations. -
challenger diaster
he Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger (OV-099) (mission STS-51-L) 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. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket -
Galileo launched
The Galileo Project was originally conceived as a mission to study Jupiter and its satellites. Most early plans for this mission called for direct flights to Jupiter. After new constraints were placed on shuttle operations after the Challenger accident and the Centaur program was cancelled, a direct flight to Jupiter became impossible. A new flight plan was developed that involved flybys of Venus and Earth to provide “gravity assists” that would help the spacecraft on its way to Jupiter. Althoug -
Hubble launch
Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images with negligible background light. Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible-light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe. -
First tourist in space
Dennis Tito
American businessman Dennis Tito, the world's first orbital space tourist, is seen training for his historic 2001 flight to the International Space Station. Tito launched in April 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft thanks to a $20 million deal brokered by the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. -
first launch of space ship one
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. Its mother ship was named "White Knight". Both craft were developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company. Allen provided the funding of approximately US$25 million. -
Colunbia 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. During the launch of STS-107, Columbia's 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing. A few previous shuttle launches had seen minor damage from foam shedding,[1] but some engineers suspected that the damage to Columbia was more serious. NASA -
new horizions launch
On January 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 kilometers per second (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph). After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased New Horizons ' speed; the flyby also enabled a ge -
China's first spacewalk
China's first spacewalk On 27 September, Zhai Zhigang, wearing a Chinese-developed Feitian space suit, conducted a 22-minute space walk, the first ever for a Chinese astronaut. -
International space staiton construction finished
The process of assembling the International Space Station (ISS) has been under way since the 1990s. Zarya, the first ISS module, was launched by a Proton rocket on 20 November 1998. The STS-88 shuttle mission followed two weeks after Zarya was launched, bringing Unity, the first of three node modules, and connecting it to Zarya. This bare 2-module core of the ISS remained unmanned for the next one and a half years, until in July 2000 the Russian module Zvezda was added, allowing a minimum crew o -
Last space shuttle launched
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. STS-135 launched on 8 July 2011, and landed on 21 July 2011, following a one-day mission extension. The four-person crew was the smallest of any shuttle mission since STS-6 in April 1983. The mission's primary cargo was the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) -
curiosity mars landing
Curiosity is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission -
new horuizions reaches pluto
New Horizons was originally planned as a voyage to the only unexplored planet in the Solar System. When the spacecraft was launched, Pluto was still classified as a planet, later to be reclassified as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Some members of the New Horizons team, including Alan Stern, disagree with the IAU definition and still describe Pluto as the ninth planet.[25] Pluto's satellites Nix and Hydra also have a connection with the spacecraft: the first letter -
Hubble brought back down
If we do nothing, the Hubble Space Telescope will fall to Earth in 2024. It is in an orbit roughly 560 km above the Earth and circles the Earth once every 97 minutes. While for most intents and purposes the Hubble Space Telescope can be considered to be in space, it actually lies in what is known as the thermosphere: the largest and most tenuous part of the Earth's atmosphere. The thernosphere is roughly one million times less dense than the atmosphere at sea level, yet it is enough to affect t
