-
On October 4, 1957, Moscow launched the first artificial space satellite, Sputnik 1. -
-
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. -
On July 21, 1969, US astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to step onto the Moon. -
On April 19, 1971, the Soviet Union launched the first orbital space station, Salyut 1. -
On July 20, 1976, US spacecraft Viking 1 became the first to successfully land on Mars and send back images of the Red Planet. -
On April 12, 1981, the US space shuttle Columbia, the first reusable manned spacecraft, made its first voyage. -
On April 25, 1990, the Hubble was the first space telescope to be placed into orbit, at 547 kilometers (340 miles) from Earth. -
On April 28, 2001, Italian American multi-millionaire Dennis Tito, 60, became the world's first space tourist. -
On September 29, 2008, the US company SpaceX was the first private venture to successfully launch a rocket into Earth's orbit, the Falcon 1. -
On November 12, 2014, the European Space Agency placed a small robot, Philae, on a comet more than 500 million kilometers from Earth.