-
USSR launches Sputnik 1.
-
-
Explorer 1, the first American satellite to reach orbit, is launched. It carried scientific equipment that lead to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.
-
Launched by the USSR. It is the first man made object to orbit the Sun.
-
US launches Discover XIV, fist camera equiped spy satellite.
-
Yuri Gagarin orbits the Earth once and becomes the first man in space.
-
NASA announces the Gemini Program.
-
Walter Schirra orbits the Earth six times.
-
Cosmonaut Valentia Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
-
Ranger 7 transmits the first close range images of the moon.
-
Alexei Leonov spends 12 minutes outside of his Voskhod spacecraft performing the first space walk.
-
Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon.
-
The last flight of the Gemini program.
-
Venera 4 transmits data about the atmosphere of Venus.
-
Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders begin the first manned journey from the Earth to the Moon.
-
Eleventh and final manned mission in the American Apollo program.
