Space Timeline

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched a polished 58 cm sphere that circled the Earth every 96 minutes, beeping on a frequency any radio amateur could hear. The Space Age had begun — and so had the Space Race.

A month later, the dog Laika rode Sputnik 2 into orbit, becoming the first living creature to circle the Earth. She did not survive the flight, but proved a living passenger could reach space.

The United States answered on January 31, 1958 with Explorer 1, whose instruments discovered the Van Allen radiation belts. NASA was founded that October to lead the effort.

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth once aboard Vostok 1, becoming the first human to leave the planet. The 108-minute flight made him an instant global icon.

John Glenn circled the Earth three times aboard Friendship 7, becoming the first American to orbit and restoring national confidence in a Space Race the U.S. had been losing.

Valentina Tereshkova spent nearly three days in orbit aboard Vostok 6, becoming the first woman in space — a milestone the United States would not match for another twenty years.

Alexei Leonov floated outside his Voskhod 2 capsule for twelve minutes in the first spacewalk. His suit ballooned so badly in the vacuum that he barely fit back through the hatch.

Apollo 8 carried the first humans beyond Earth orbit to circle the Moon ten times, beaming home the famous “Earthrise” photograph on Christmas Eve 1968.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above. An estimated 600 million people watched the first human steps on another world.

The Soviet Union launched Salyut 1, the first space station — a single-module outpost that proved humans could live and work in orbit for weeks at a time.

Apollo 17 closed the Apollo program. Gene Cernan became the last human to walk on the Moon — and, more than fifty years later, no one has returned. Artemis aims to change that.

Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne reached space twice in two weeks to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize — the first crewed spaceflight funded entirely by private money.

NASA’s Curiosity rover survived the “seven minutes of terror” to land in Gale Crater, where it still drives, drills, and studies whether Mars was once habitable.

After a nine-year, five-billion-kilometre journey, New Horizons swept past Pluto, turning the distant dwarf planet from a blurry dot into a world of ice mountains and frozen plains.

NASA launched a probe to “touch the Sun,” diving through the solar corona. Slung by the Sun’s gravity, it became the fastest object humans have ever built — about 692,000 km/h, nearly 200 km every second.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon carried NASA astronauts to the ISS — the first crewed orbital flight aboard a privately built spacecraft, and the first launch of astronauts from U.S. soil since the Shuttle retired in 2011.

The largest telescope ever flown unfolded in space on Christmas Day 2021 and now peers back toward the first galaxies, seeing the infrared universe that Hubble could not.

NASA’s giant Space Launch System flew for the first time, sending an uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon and safely home — the opening flight of the program to return humans to the lunar surface.

SpaceX launched the first full stack of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, opening the flight-test campaign for a fully reusable vehicle aimed at the Moon and Mars.

In April 2026 the first crewed Artemis mission carried Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen around the Moon and safely home — the first humans to travel to lunar distance since 1972, setting a record for the farthest people have ever flown from Earth and clearing the way for the Artemis III landing.