Chronology
See also: Timeline of space exploration| Date | First ... | Mission | Person(s) | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 4, 1957 | artificial satellite | Sputnik 1 | - | Soviet Union |
| January 2, 1959 | Lunar flyby, and first spacecraft to achieve a heliocentric orbit | Luna 1 | - | Soviet Union |
| September 12, 1959 | Impacted on the Lunar surface; thereby becoming the first human object to reach another world | Luna 2 | - | Soviet Union |
| October 7, 1959 | Pictures of the far side of the moon | Luna 3 | - | Soviet Union |
| April 12, 1961 | Human in space | Vostok 1 | Yuri Gagarin | Soviet Union |
| March 18, 1965 | Spacewalk | Voskhod 2 | Alexey Leonov | Soviet Union |
| December 15, 1965 | Space rendezvous | Gemini 6A & Gemini 7 | Schirra, Stafford, Borman, Lovell | United States |
| April 3, 1966 | Artificial satellite of another celestial body | Luna 10 | - | Soviet Union |
| December 21–27, 1968 | Humans to leave the Earth's influence, orbiting the Moon | Apollo 8 | Borman, Lovell, Anders | United States |
| July 20, 1969 | Human to walk on the Moon | Apollo 11 | Neil Armstrong | United States |
| April 19, 1971 | Space station | Salyut 1 | - | Soviet Union |
| July 20, 1976 | Pictures from the surface of Mars | Viking 1 | - | United States |
| April 12, 1981 | Reusable orbital spaceship | Space Shuttle | Young, Crippen | United States |
| February 19, 1986 | Long-duration space station | Mir | - | Soviet Union |
| November 2, 2000 | Resident crew | Expedition 1 (International Space Station) | - | International |
Read more about this topic: Space Age