History of Spaceflight

Major events are highlighted.

1857-1935 Tsiolkovsky – rocket scientist
1926 Rocket – liquid propellant – Goddard
1929 Rocket motors – Soviets begin development
1933 Guided weapons – Germans experiment with these
1937 Rocket tests at Peenmόnde – Werner von Braun
1941 Jet aircraft – first British jet aircraft flew
1942 Rocket - V2 rocket – first successful one flew
1957 Sputnik 1 launched by the USSR – first artificial satellite
1957 Sputnik 2 – dog Laika launch in the Russian spacecraft
1958 Explorer 1- first US artificial satellite
1958 Vanguard 1
1959 Lunik 1 fist artificial planet
1959 Lunik 2 crashed into the Moon
1959 Lunik 3 – first pictures of the far side of the Moon
1959 Pioneer 4 - orbit round the Sun
1960 Sputnik V – 4500 kg – Strlka and Belka recovered alive
1961 Chimpanzee in Mercury capsule
1961 First man in space and the first manned orbital flight by the Russian Yuri Gagarin
1961 Mercury 3 – first US man in space - Alan Sheppard
1961 Mercury 4 – Gus Grissom
1961 Titov – 17 orbits
1962 Ariel – first British satellite
1962 Mariner 2 flies close to Venus – surface temperature 700 K
1962 Mercury 6 – John Glenn – three orbits
1962 Mercury 7
1962 Mercury 8
1962 Vostok 3 – 64 orbits
1962 Vostok 4 – 48 orbits
1962 Telstar – first communications satellite launched
1963 First geostationary satellite launched
1963 Mercury 9 – 22 orbits – final Mercury flight
1963 Vostok 5 – 81 orbits
1963 Vostok 6 – 48 orbits – Valentina Tereschkova – first woman in space
1964 Gemini unmanned test flight
1964 Ranger 7 – close up photos of the Moon
1964 Voshkod 1 – 16 orbits of the Earth – three astronauts in this Russian spacecraft
1965 Gemini 3
1965 Gemini 4
1965 Gemini 6 and 7 rendezvous in orbit (206 orbits Gemini 7)
1965 Voshkod 2 – seventeen orbits – first space walk
1965 TV – Early Bird satellite first used for TV
1966 Final Gemini flights – 8,9,10,11,12
1966 Luna 9 – first unmanned soft landing on the Moon
1966 Lunar Orbiter – view of Earth from the Moon
1966 Surveyor I – soft landing on the Moon
1967 First reported space fatalities one USSR. Three USA men died in launch pad fire
1967 Saturn V – test firing to 11000 miles
1967 Soyuz I
1967 USSR – link up of two unmanned satellites
1967 Venus 4 probe soft landing on Venus
1968 Apollo 7 orbits the Earth
1968 Apollo 8 – men orbit the Moon at Christmas time
1968 Luna 14 into lunar orbit
1968 Soyuz 3
1968 Zond 5 and 6 – round the Moon and back
1969 Apollo 9
1969 Apollo 10
1969 Apollo 11– men land on the Moon
1969 Apollo12
1969 Mariner photographs Mars
1969 Rocket USSR 10 million pounds of thrust, explodes on ground
1969 Soyuz 4 and 5 – first manned orbital link up
1969 Soyuz 6,7 and 8 – first space welding
1970 Apollo 13 – near disaster due to explosion in service module
1971 Lunar rover vehicle first used on the Moon
1971 Mars 2 capsule – first Mars landing
1972 Apollo 17 – the final Apollo mission
1979 Jupiter fly-by by Voyagers 1 and 2
1979 Voyager spacecraft discovers the rings of Jupiter
1980 Voyager space probes pass Saturn
1982 International Space shuttle operational
1986 Challenger disaster – space shuttle disintegrates during launch
1990 Hubble Space telescope launched
1991 Helen Sharman – first British astronaut flew on the Russian Mir space station
1993 Hubble Space telescope repaired
1997 Cassini space probe launched by NASA to Saturn
1997 Pathfinder – first roving robot on Mars
1999 Cassini passes 600 km from Venus
2001 Denis Tito - the first space tourist when launched on a Russian spacecraft
2001 Russian space station Mir burns up on return to Earth
2003 British spacecraft Beagle 2 mission launched to land on Mars looses contact with Earth
2003 American spacecraft lands on Mars
2005 Huyghens probe launched from Cassini space craft lands safely on Titan
2006 New Horizons mission to Pluto launched
2008 USA Pheonix probe landed on Mars
2009 European Hershel space observatory launched into Earth orbit
2010 Juno mission to Jupiter launched
2011 Final space shuttle mission as Atlantis lands
2012 Mars science laboratory Curiosity rover landed on Mars
2014 ESA space probe Rosetta reaches comet 67P after a ten year flight
2015 First flyby of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft
2015-2015 Tim Peake on International Space Station
2016 Juno reaches Jupiter and descends through the Jovian atmosphere
2016 Spacecraft launched to Mars by European and Russian teams