Important dates in space exploration

By _106557

  • Sputnik 1

    first artificial Earth satellite

  • Luna 2

    first spacecraft to hard-land on another celestial object (the Moon)

  • Luna 3

    Luna 3first pictures of the far side of the Moon

  • TIROS 1 (weather observation)

    first applications satellite launched

  • Discoverer 13 (part of Corona reconnaissance satellite program) U.S. April 12, 1961 first human to orbit Earth

    first recovery of a payload from Earth orbit

  • Yury Gagarin on Vostok 1

    first human to orbit Earth

  • Luna 16

    first return of lunar samples by an unmanned spacecraft

  • dog Laika aboard Sputnik 2

    first animal launched into space

  • NASA publicly unveils the Enterprise

    Its first space shuttle they named it the Enterprise

  • Mariner 2

    first data returned from another planet (Venus)