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If not refered to directly any mentioned country's space mission can be attributed to as follows...
United States-NASA
Soviet Union-Roscosmos
Canada-Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
European Union-ESA
India-ISRO
Japan-JAXA
China-CNSA -
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Roscosmos launches the satellite Sputnik 1 from Tyuratam. This was the first artificial satellite and was to be used to study the Earth and Solar System. This is often cited as the start of the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. -
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2 with the first living passenger, the dog Laika, aboard.
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The U.S.S.R. launches Luna 1, which misses the moon but becomes the first artificial object to leave Earth orbit.
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NASA the American space agency launches the first primates in space, Able and Baker, on a suborbital flight. The two monkeys survived the journey and reached an altitude of 300 miles.
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NASA's Explorer 6 launches and provides the first photographs of the Earth from space by a satellite. The photo captured the Pacific Ocean. -
Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space with a 108-minute flight on Vostok 1 in which he completed one orbit. -
In a speech before Congress, President John Kennedy announces that an American will land on the moon and be returned safely to Earth before the end of the decade. -
Saturn 1, the rocket for the initial Apollo missions, is tested for the first time. Shortly after NASA sends John Glenn into America's first maned orbital flight aboard Mercury 6.
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Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to fly into space. This was aboard the Soviet Union's Vostok 6. -
A spacecraft was launched carrying Russian cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Pavel Belyayev. Tethered to the spacecraft Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov became the first person to perform a spacewalk.
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France launches its first satellite, Astérix, on a Diamant A rocket, becoming the third nation to do so.
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The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 makes the first soft landing on the Moon.
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The Soviet Union's Venera 3 probe becomes the first spacecraft to land on the planet Venus, but its communications system failed before data could be returned.
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Apollo 8 launches on a Saturn V and becomes the first manned mission to orbit the moon.
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Six years after U.S. President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Apollo 11 crew lands on the Moon, fulfilling his promise to put an American there by the end of the decade and return him safely to Earth. This is often credited to the end of the Space Race. -
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The United Kingdom successfully launches its Prospero satellite into orbit on a Black Arrow rocket, becoming the sixth nation capable of launching its own satellites into space. The Soviet Union, United States, France, China, United Kingdom, and Japan have the capacity at this time to launch their own satellites.
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Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit Mars and provides the first complete map of the planet's surface. A couple of years later Mariner 10 would be the first to fly past Mercury. -
Apollo 17, the last mission to the moon, returns to Earth. The crew size numbered 12 astronauts.
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A Saturn V rocket launches Skylab, the United States' first space station. -
The European Space Agency is formed.
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The U.S. Viking 1 lands on Mars, becoming the first successful Mars lander.
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Astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart maneuver as many as 328 feet (100 meters) from the Space Shuttle Challenger using the Manned Maneuvering Unit, which contains small thrusters, in the first ever untethered spacewalks.
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NASA directed the mission that saw the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch the Magellan space probe to use radar to map the surface of Venus.
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NASA and the European Space Agency release the Hubble Space Telescope into Earth orbit. -
DirecTV launches its first satellite, DirecTV 1, aboard an Ariane 4 rocket.
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Galileo, a mission conducted by NASA, releases its space probe, which is bound for Jupiter and its moons.
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NASA's Mars Pathfinder lander and its accompanying Sojourner rover touch down on the surface of Mars. -
The first piece of the International Space Station was launched in November 1998. More pieces were added over the next two years before the station was ready for people to live there. The first crew arrived on November 2, 2000. A variety of space agencies participated in the project such as NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency -
Yang Liwei becomes China's first taikonaut, having launched aboard Shenzhou 5.
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The China National Space Administration launched its first space station, Tiangong-1, into Earth orbit in September 2011. -
Elon Musk's Space X became the first private company to send humans to the International Space Station (ISS).
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Launches. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launched at 7:20 a.m. EST on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, South America. Ground teams began receiving telemetry data from Webb about five minutes after launch.