Space exploration timeline

By Channylan

  • 1957

    1957
    The Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. The Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 was launched with a dog named Laika on board. Laika did not survive the voyage.

  • 1958

    January 31 -Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States when it was sent into orbit on January 31, 1958. It was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of Technology. The satellite was sent aloft from Cape Canaveral in Florida by the Jupiter C rocket that was designed, built, and launched by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under the direction of Dr. Wernher Von Braun.

  • 1960

    1960
    August 19 - The Soviet craft Sputnik 5 was launched, carrying the dogs Strelka and Belka. They became the first living beings to survive a trip into space.

  • 1961

    April 12 - Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. May 5 - Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space. May 25 - President Kennedy challenged the country to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

  • 1969

    July 20 - Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men on the moon.

  • 1973

    1973
    May 14 - The U.S. launched its first space station, Skylab.

  • 1983

    April 4 - The second Space Shuttle, Challenger, was launched. June 19 - Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on Challenger’s second mission. August 30 - Guion Bluford became the first African-American in space.

  • 1990

    August 24 - The Space Shuttle Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.

  • 1993

    February 3 - Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on a Space Shuttle.

  • 2003

    February 1 - The Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. February 13 - An investigative panel found that superheated air almost certainly seeped through a breach in space shuttle Columbia’s left wing and possibly its wheel compartment during the craft’s fiery descent, resulting in the deaths of all seven astronauts. August 25 - NASA launched the largest-diameter infrared telescope ever in space, the Spitzer Space Telescope. September 21 - NASA’s Galileo missio