A

David

Darling

firsts in spaceflight

first spacecraft / individual date
artificial satellite Sputnik 1 Oct 4, 1957
living creature in space dog Laika Nov 3, 1957
American satellite Explorer 1 Feb 1, 1958
recorded message from space SCORE Dec 18, 1958
probe to reach escape velocity/lunar flyby Luna 1 Jan 2, 1959
polar orbiting satellite Discoverer 1 Feb 28, 1959
lunar impact Luna 2 Sep 12, 1959
weather satellite Explorer 7 Oct 13, 1959
active comsat Courier 1B Oct 4, 1960
human in space Yuri Gagarin Apr 12, 1961
satellite telephone call & TV broadcast Echo 1 Feb 24, 1962
real-time active comsat Telstar 1 Jul 10, 1962
successful planetary flyby (Venus) Mariner 2 Aug 27, 1962
woman in space Valentina Tereshkova Jun 16, 1963
geosynchronous satellite Syncom 2 Jul 26, 1963
joint US/USSR space project Echo 2 Jan 25, 1964
geostationary satellite Syncom 3 Aug 19, 1964
commercial comsat Early Bird/Intelsat 1 Apr 6, 1965
manned flight to leave Earth orbit Apollo 8 Dec 21, 1968
human on the Moon Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 Jul 21, 1969
satellite repaired in orbit SMM (by Shuttle) Apr 6, 1984
satellites brought back from space Shuttle mission STS-19 Nov 16, 1984
ion-powered deep space probe Deep Space 1 Oct 24, 1998