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The first artificial satellite ever launched into space was Sputnik 1, which was launched by the Soviet Union (USSR) on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1 was a significant milestone in the history of space exploration, marking the beginning of the space age and the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The successful launch of Sputnik 1 had a profound impact on science, technology, and geopolitics. -
The first mammal in orbit was Laika, a Soviet space dog. Laika was a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, and she was sent into space by the Soviet Union on November 3, 1957, aboard the spacecraft Sputnik 2. Unfortunately, Laika did not survive the mission, as the technology to safely return living beings from space was not yet developed at that time. -
The first rocket engine fired in space by NASA was likely part of the Redstone rocket. The Redstone rocket was a key component of NASA's early spaceflight program and was used for several significant missions, including the first crewed spaceflight by an American, Alan Shepard, on May 5, 1961, during the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission, also known as Freedom 7. -
The first human to pilot a suborbital spaceflight was Alan Shepard, an American astronaut. He piloted the Freedom 7 spacecraft, which was part of NASA's Mercury program. On May 5, 1961, Shepard's spacecraft was launched atop a Redstone rocket during the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission. -
The first human to walk on another celestial body, specifically the Moon, was American astronaut Neil Armstrong. He was the mission commander of NASA's Apollo 11 mission, which was the fifth crewed mission in NASA's Apollo program and the first to successfully land humans on the Moon. -
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA as part of the Voyager program. It was launched on September 5, 1977, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a Titan IIIE/Centaur rocket. Voyager 1, along with its twin spacecraft Voyager 2, was designed to study the outer Solar System and beyond. -
The first long-term research space station that was regularly manned is the Soviet space station Salyut 1. Salyut 1 was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. It marked the beginning of a series of space stations that were part of the Salyut program. -
The first photograph showing the entire solar system in a single frame was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14, 1990. This iconic image is known as the "Pale Blue Dot." -
The first person to conduct an untethered spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), was astronaut Bruce McCandless II. This historic event took place on February 7, 1984, during Space Shuttle mission STS-41-B. -
The first photograph of a supermassive black hole was obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration and was released to the public on April 10, 2019. The image is of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, which is about 55 million light-years away from Earth.