Space Race By Corneisha Jan 31, 1958 Explorer 1 (US) - first american satellite, unmanned May 15, 1958 Sputnik 3 (USSR) - first data about Earth taken from orbit Apr 12, 1961 Vostok 1 (USSR) - first manned space flight, Yuri Gagarin. One orbit of Earth (first person in space) May 5, 1961 Mercury Freedom 7 (US) - Alan Shepard, first American in space Jun 3, 1965 Gemini 4 (US) - first American. Space walk (21 minutes) Nov 16, 1965 Venera 3 (USSR) - impacted venus on March 1, 1966: no data Jan 31, 1966 Luna 9 (USSR ) - first soft landing on moon, returned surface photos of the moon Jun 2, 1966 Surveyor 1 (US) - first america soft landing on moon, returned 11,240 photos Jan 22, 1968 Apollo 5 (US) - first flight of lunar module (unmanned) Sep 14, 1968 Zond 5 (USSR) - first satellite to fly around the moon and return to earth Apr 11, 1970 Apollo 13 (US) - third manned landing attempt aborted due to oxygen tank explosion in service module. Jun 1, 1970 Soyuz 9 (USSR) - set new duration record for manned space flight. Apr 19, 1971 Salyut 1 (USSR) - first orbiting space station lab. May 19, 1971 Mars 2 (US) - first vehicle to land on Mars Mar 3, 1972 Pioneer 10 (US) - first successful flyby of Jupiter Mar 27, 1972 Venera 8 (USSR) - landed on Venus and lasted long enough to transmit surface date.