 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Paris (AFP) April 7, 2011 Following are key dates in the history of space travel and exploration, 50 years after Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin became the first man in space: 1957 October: USSR launches first satellite Sputnik 1. November 3: Russian dog Laika becomes first live animal in space but dies aboard Sputnik 2. 1958 October: American space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) created. 1961 April: Gagarin becomes first man in space, completing a single, 108-minute orbit aboard Vostok 1. May: US President John Kennedy launches the Apollo programme which foresees a man on the moon by the end of the decade. American Alan Shepard carries out a 15-minute space flight aboard Mercury. 1962 February: American John Glenn completes the first three orbits of the Earth. August: US launches a probe to Venus, USSR fires a probe to Mars in November. 1963 June: First space flight by a woman, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. 1965 March: Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov undertakes first spacewalk during a 26-hour flight. 1967 January: Launchpad blaze kills all three astronauts aboard Apollo 1. Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov killed when Soyuz 1 parachute fails in April. 1969 July: US astronauts Neil Armstrong, then Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (Apollo 11) become first men to set foot on the Moon. 1971 April: USSR launches first orbital space station, Salyut 1. June: Three cosmonauts on Soyuz 11 die during descent of their module. 1975 May: European Space Agency created. July: A US Apollo spacecraft docks with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft while in Earth orbit. 1979 December: Europe becomes a space power with the launch of the Ariane rocket. 1981 April: Maiden voyage of the US space shuttle Columbia, the first reusable manned spacecraft. It is followed later by Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. 1986 January: Challenger explodes on liftoff, killing all seven astronauts. 1990 April: Launch of of the Hubble Space Telescope, a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency. 1998 November: Start of the contruction of the International Space Station (ISS), which is inhabited in late 2000. 2001 April: US millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the world's first space tourist. 2003 February: Shuttle Columbia disintegrates over Texas upon reentry killing seven astronaunts. October: China launches the Chang'e I satellite, the nation's first lunar orbiter. In September 2008 Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang aboard the Shenzhou VII successfully completes his country's first ever space walk. 2004 September: British airline magnate Richard Branson announces a plan for the world's first commercial space flights. 2008 October: India's first lunar mission blasts off from the national space centre on the southeastern coast. 2009 February: Iran launches its first domestically manufactured satellite into orbit. A year later it sends animals into space. 2010 February: US President Barack Obama scraps plans to return Americans to the moon and to conquer Mars. 2011 February: Shuttle Discovery lands back on Earth after its final space flight before retirement. After the last journeys of Endeavour and Atlantis, the US will depend totally on Russia's Soyuz to go to space.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News
Witnesses Say Future Of NASA Human Space Flight Is UncertainWashington DC (SPX) Apr 01, 2011 today, in a hearing of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, witnesses expressed serious concern about the lack of clear focus by the Administration on NASA's transition from the Space Shuttle program toward development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). These vital components of NASA's human space flight program were outlined as top priorities in the NA ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
