Significant Milestones in Space Exploration

1957–1959

Date Country Event Spacecraft / Mission
1957 Oct 4 USSR First Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. Sputnik 1
1957 Nov 3 USSR First mammal (the dog Laika) in orbit around Earth. Sputnik 2
1958 Jan 31 USA First satellite for discovering the Van Allen radiation belt. Explorer 1
1958 Mar 17 USA First solar-powered satellite. Vanguard 1
1959 Jan 2 USSR First spacecraft to pass near the Moon. Luna 1
1959 Mar 3 USA First American probe to fly by the Moon. Pioneer 4
1959 Feb 28 USA First satellite in a polar orbit. Discoverer 1
1959 May 28 USA First primates to be recovered from a spaceflight. ABLE & BAKER
1959 Aug 7 USA First photograph of Earth from orbit. Explorer 6
1959 Sep 14 USSR First spacecraft to impact the Moon. Luna 2
1959 Oct 7 USSR First photos of far side of the Moon. Luna 3

1960–1969

Date Country Event Spacecraft / Mission
1960 Aug 11 USA First satellite recovered intact from orbit. Discoverer 13
1960 Aug 18 USA First aerial recovery of an object (the film) returning from Earth orbit. Discoverer 14
1960 Aug 19 USSR First animals and plants returned alive from space, first capsule recovered from orbit (Belka and Strelka). Korabl-Sputnik 2
1961 Jan 31 USA First great ape (HAM the Chimp) launched into space. HAM
1961 Apr 12 USSR First human orbital spaceflight (Yuri Gagarin). Vostok 1
1961 May 5 USA First American in space (suborbital flight), first pilot-controlled space flight (Alan Shepard). Freedom 7
1961 May 25 USA President Kennedy pledged to support the American space program. Kennedy National Goal
1961 Aug 6 USSR First human orbital spaceflight lasting a full day (Gherman Titov). Vostok 2
1962 Feb 20 USA First American orbital space (John Glenn). Friendship 7
1962 Aug 12 USSR First dual spaceflights (Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich). Vostok 3/
Vostok 4
1963 Jun 16 USSR First woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova). Vostok 6
1964 Jul 28 USA First US space probe to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit close images of the lunar surface before impact. Ranger 7
1964 Oct 12 USSR First spaceflight that carry more than one crewman (Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov). Voskhod 1
1965 Mar 18 USSR First "space walk" (Alexei Leonov). Voskhod 2
1965 Mar 23 USA First time two American astronauts flew together into space, first piloted spacecraft orbit change (Gus Grissom and John Young). Gemini 3
1965 June 3 USA First space walk by an American, first American flight to perform scientific experiments in space (James McDivitt and Edward White). Gemini 4
1965 Dec 15 USA First orbital rendezvous (Walter Schirra, Thomas Stafford, Frank Borman and James Lovell). Gemini 6A

Gemini 7
1966 Feb 3 USSR First soft landing on the Moon and took the first pictures from the lunar surface. Luna 9
1966 Mar 16 USA First spacecraft docking (Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott). Gemini 8
1966 Apr 3 USSR First artificial satellite to orbit the Moon. Luna 10
1966 May 30 USA First US spacecraft to perform a controlled landing on the surface of the moon. Surveyor 1
1966 Aug 10 USA First photographs of the Moon's surface from lunar orbit, first image of Earth taken from the Moon. Lunar Orbiter 1
1966 Sep 12 USA First direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous. Gemini 11
1967 Oct 30 USSR First docking of two remote-controlled spacecraft. Kosmos 186/
Kosmos 188
1968 Sep 14 USSR First life forms to circle the Moon and return to Earth. Zond 5
1968 Oct 11 USA First three-person American crew to launch into space, first live TV broadcast from space occurred during the mission (Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele). Apollo 7
1968 Dec 21 USA First human spaceflight to orbit the Moon. Apollo 8
1969 Jan 16 USSR First docking of two manned spacecrafts and crew exchange in space. Soyuz 4/
Soyuz 5
1969 Jul 20 USA First humans landed on the Moon. Apollo 11
1969 Nov 19 USA First targeted landing on the Moon (Surveyor 3 site). Apollo 12

1970–1975

Date Country Event Spacecraft / Mission
1970 Sep 24 USSR First robotic probe to return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. Luna 16
1970 Nov 23 USSR First remote-controlled lunar rover on the Moon. Lunokhod 1
1971 Jun 29 USSR First human-crewed orbital observatory (Orion 1). Soyuz 11
1971 Jul 31 USA First human-driven lunar rover. Apollo 15
1975 Jul 15 USA &
USSR
First multinational human-crewed mission. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

Soyuz 19