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1903 Paper mathematically demonstrates liftoff with liquid fuels
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes a paper in Russia that mathematically demonstrates how to achieve liftoff with liquid fuels. He also proposes using multistage rockets, which would be jettisoned as they spent their fuel, and guidance systems using gyroscopes and movable vanes positioned in the exhaust stream. His formulas for adjusting a spacecraft’s direction and speed to place it in any given orbit are still in use today. -
1915 1915 Goddard establishes that it is possible to send a rocket to the Moon
Robert Goddard experiments with reaction propulsion in a vacuum and establishes that it is possible to send a rocket to the Moon. Eleven years later, in 1926, Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket. -
1960 TIROS 1 launched
Weather satellite TIROS 1 is launched to test experimental television techniques for a worldwide meteorological satellite information system. Weighing 270 pounds, the aluminum alloy and stainless steel spacecraft is 42 inches in diameter and 19 inches high and is covered by 9,200 solar cells, which serve to charge the onboard batteries. Magnetic tape recorders, one for each of two television cameras, store photographs while the satellite is out of range of the ground station network. -
1958 United States launches its first satellite
The United States launches its first satellite, the 30.8-pound Explorer 1. During this mission, Explorer 1 carries an experiment designed by James A.Van Allen, a physicist at the University of Iowa, which documents the existence of radiation zones encircling Earth within the planet’s magnetic field. The Van Allen Radiation Belt, as it comes to be called, partially dictates the electrical charges in the atmosphere and the solar radiation that reaches Earth. -
1959 Luna 3 probe flies past the Moon
The Soviet Union’s Luna 3 probe flies past the Moon and takes the first pictures of its far side. This satellite carries an automated film developing unit and then relays the pictures back to Earth via video camera. -
1961 Alan B. Shepard, Jr. becomes the second human in space
On May 5 astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr., in Freedom 7, becomes the second human in space. Launched from Cape Canaveral by a Mercury-Redstone rocket, Freedom 7—the first piloted Mercury spacecraft—reaches an altitude of 115 nautical miles and a speed of 5,100 miles per hour before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. -
1961 Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space
On April 12, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, in Vostok I, becomes the first human in space. Launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome, he completes one orbit of Earth in a cabin that contains radios, instrumentation, life-support equipment, and an ejection seat. Three small portholes give him a view of space. At the end of his 108-minute ride, during which all flight controls are operated by ground crews, he parachutes to safety in Kazakhstan. -
1942 Successful launch of a V-2 rocket
Thousands of V-2s are deployed during World War II, but the guidance system for these missiles is imperfect and many do not reach their targets. The later capture of V-2 rocket components gives American scientists an early opportunity to develop rocket research techniques. In 1949, for example, a V-2 mated to a smaller U.S. Army WAC Corporal second-stage rocket reaches an altitude of 244 miles and is used to obtain data on both high altitudes and the principles of two-stage rockets. -
1957 Sputnik I
On October 4 the Soviet Union launches Sputnik I using a liquid-fueled rocket built by Sergei Korolev. About the size of a basketball, the first artificial Earth satellite weighs 184 pounds and takes about 98 minutes to complete one orbit. On November 3 the Soviets launch Sputnik II, carrying a much heavier payload that includes a passenger, a dog named Laika.
