Space Age
Chronology

Space Age

Section Title: Chronology
Table Section Text: None

Date	First ...	Mission	Person(s)	Country

June 20, 1944	Artificial object in outer space, i.e. beyond the Kármán line	V-2 rocket, test flight	– N/A	Germany

October 24, 1946	Pictures from space (105 km)	U.S.-launched V-2 rocket from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.	– N/A	United States

February 20, 1947	Animals in space	U.S.-launched V-2 rocket on 20 February 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.	fruit flies	United States

October 4, 1957	Artificial satellite	Sputnik 1	– N/A	Soviet Union

November 3, 1957	Animal in orbit	Sputnik 2	Laika the dog	Soviet Union

January 2, 1959	Lunar flyby, and first spacecraft to achieve a heliocentric orbit	Luna 1	– N/A	Soviet Union

September 12, 1959	Impacted on the Lunar surface; thereby becoming the first human object to reach another celestial body	Luna 2	– N/A	Soviet Union

October 7, 1959	Pictures of the far side of the Moon	Luna 3	– N/A	Soviet Union

April 12, 1961	Human in space	Vostok 1	Yuri Gagarin	Soviet Union

May 5, 1961	Manual orientation of manned spacecraft and first human space mission that landed with pilot still in spacecraft, thus the first complete human spaceflight by FAI definitions	Freedom 7	Alan Shepard	United States

December 14, 1962	Successful flyby of another planet (Venus closest approach 34,773 kilometers)	Mariner 2	– N/A	United States

March 18, 1965	Spacewalk	Voskhod 2	Alexei Leonov	Soviet Union

December 15, 1965	Space rendezvous	Gemini 6A and Gemini 7	Schirra, Stafford, Borman, Lovell	United States

February 3, 1966	Soft landing on the Moon by a spacecraft	Luna 9	– N/A	Soviet Union

March 1, 1966	First human-made object to impact another planet	Venera 3	– N/A	Soviet Union

March 16, 1966	Orbital docking between two spacecraft	Gemini 8 & Agena Target Vehicle	Neil Armstrong, David Scott	United States

April 3, 1966	Artificial satellite of another celestial body (other than the Sun)	Luna 10	– N/A	Soviet Union

October 18, 1967	First spacecraft to perform transmit data from the atmosphere of another planet	Venera 4	– N/A	Soviet Union

December 21–27, 1968	First humans to enter the gravitational influence of another celestial body (the Moon) and orbit it	Apollo 8	Borman, Lovell, Anders	United States

July 20, 1969	Humans land and walk on another celestial body (Moon)	Apollo 11	Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin	United States

December 15, 1970	First telemetry from the surface of another planet	Venera 7	– N/A	Soviet Union

April 19, 1971	Operational space station	Salyut 1	– N/A	Soviet Union

June 7, 1971	Resident crew	Soyuz 11 (Salyut 1)	Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, Viktor Patsayev	Soviet Union

July 20, 1976	Pictures from the surface of Mars	Viking 1	– N/A	United States

April 12, 1981	Reusable orbital spaceship	STS-1	Young, Crippen	United States

February 19, 1986	Long-duration space station	Mir	– N/A	Soviet Union

February 14, 1990	Photograph of the whole Solar System	Voyager 1	– N/A	United States

November 20, 1998	Current space station	International Space Station	– N/A	United States

August 25, 2012	Artificial space probe in interstellar space	Voyager 1	– N/A	United States

November 12, 2014	Artificial probe to make a planned and soft landing on a comet (67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko)	Rosetta	– N/A	European Space Agency

July 14, 2015	Nation to have its space probes to explore all of the nine major planets recognized in 1981	New Horizons	– N/A	United States

December 20, 2015	Vertical landing of an orbital rocket booster on a ground pad.	Falcon 9 flight 20	– N/A	United States

April 8, 2016	Vertical landing of an orbital rocket booster on a floating platform at sea.	SpaceX CRS-8	– N/A	United States

March 30, 2017	Relaunch and second landing of a used orbital rocket booster.	SES-10	– N/A	United States

January 3, 2019	Soft landing on the lunar far side by a spacecraft.	Chang'e 4	– N/A	China

Sentence(s)

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957 in the Soviet Union.

final_sentence: Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957 in the Soviet Union.