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Sputnik 1
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into space, which at 83 kilograms became the first human-made satellite to orbit the Earth. -
Laika
On November 3, 1957, the dog Laika became the first animal to travel into space aboard Sputnik 2. A week after launch, the dog died due to lack of oxygen. -
Vanguard 1
On May 17, 1958, NASA launched Vanguard 1 into orbit, the first solar-powered satellite and a major victory for the United States in the space race. The prime minister of the Soviet Union at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, disparaged him by referring to him as "a grapefruit". However, the Sputnik satellites (supposedly larger) fell out of orbit and burned up on their way back to Earth in 1958, while Vanguard 1 is still in space. -
SCORE
On December 18, 1958, NASA scored its first real goal during the Space Race by launching the first telecommunications satellite into orbit: SCORE. -
Luna 2
On September 14, 1959, the USSR's Luna 2 became the first terrestrial object to impact the Moon. -
Luna 3
On October 7, 1959, the Soviet satellite Luna 3 took the first images of the far side of the Moon. -
Ham the chimpazee
Ham, also known as Ham the chimpanzee, was the first hominid to fly into outer space. Ham was one of a group of six chimpanzees trained at the Holloman Aerospace Medicine Center. On January 31, 1961, Ham piloted a Project Mercury test mission to simulate exactly what the first American astronaut would feel during his historic journey. suborbital. The flight lasted sixteen minutes and the capsule fell in the Atlantic Ocean. -
Vostok 1 & Yuri Gargarin
On April 12, 1961, the Vostok 1 spacecraft was launched with Yuri Gagarin on board. Gagarin's flight lasted 108 minutes and consisted of an orbit to the Earth with an altitude of 315 kilometers.
In Earth orbit, Gagarin expressed his famous phrase: “Our Earth is blue”. At an altitude of 7,000 meters, the cosmonaut was thrown from the capsule and landed by parachute in the town of Smelovka, Saratov province.With the launch of Vostok 1, the USSR won a victory over United States in the space race -
Vostok 6
The first woman in space On June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space on a mission that lasted 3 days and during which she completed 48 laps around the earth. -
Voskhod 2
On March 18, 1965, Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov, who was traveling aboard Voskhod 2, became the first human being to perform a spacewalk by staying outside the ship he shared with cosmonaut Pavel Belyayev for 12 minutes. -
Apollo 8
On December 21, 1968, the first manned spaceflight around the Moon took place. It is also the first human spaceflight to enter the gravitational influence of another celestial body. His crew was the first in history to see the far side of the Moon, as well as the first to observe the Earth from our satellite. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the fifth mission in the United States and the first to land a human on the Moon. Apollo spacecraft was sent into space on July 16, 1969, made its moon landing on July 20 of that same year and the next day two astronauts (Armstrong and Aldrin) became the first to walk on the lunar surface . Apollo 11 was powered by a Saturn V rocket. The mission was a decisive milestone for NASA against the Soviet Union's space program during the space race. -
Pioneer 10
Pioneer 10 is an American space probe launched on March 2, 1972, being the first probe to successfully cross the asteroid belt and reach the planet Jupiter. -
Mariner 10
NASA's Mariner 10 probe became the first spacecraft to fly by the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury, on March 29, 1974, obtaining the first close-up images. He visited Mercury three times, on March 29 and September 21, 1974, and on March 16, 1975. In all, he mapped between 40 and 45 percent of the planet, although only on the sunlit side during flybys -
End Space Race & Cold War
On July 15, 1975, the link between the Soyuz and Apollo 18 ships took place in Earth orbit. It was the first joint mission of the space agencies of both countries. Historians agree that this event ended the Cold War.