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The Sputnik 1 spacecraft was the first artificial satellite successfully placed in orbit around the Earth and was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome at Tyuratam in Kazakhstan, then part of the former Soviet Union.
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Sent the first living thing into space.
Showed that living things can survive in space. -
First man made object to orbit sun.
Origanaly set to go to the moon ,but got of course and
went into orbit. -
First American satellite launched into space.
Explorer 1 made 58,000 orbits before bujrning up in earths
atsmophere. -
On that day in 1961,Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, making a 108 minute orbital flight in his Vostak 1 spacecraft.
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First American in space.
Got U.S. back into space race. -
The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn made history when at the age of 77, he became the oldest person to travel in space.
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Ranger 7 was designed to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact.
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Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data from the Moon's surface to Earth, preceding the U.S. Surveyor 1 soft lander by about 4 months.
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Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin into an initial Earth-orbit of 114 by 116 miles. An estimated 530 million people watched Armstrong's televised image and heard his voice describe the event as he took "...one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" on July 20, 1969.