Key milestones in humanity's exploration of space
25 cards · science
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| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Sputnik 1 | Oct 4, 1957; first artificial satellite Launched by the USSR, it ignited the Space Age and the US–USSR space race. |
| Vostok 1 | Apr 12, 1961; first human spaceflight (Yuri Gagarin) Gagarin orbited Earth once in 108 minutes—celebrated annually as Yuri’s Night. |
| Voskhod 2 | Mar 18, 1965; first spacewalk (Alexei Leonov) Leonov spent ~12 minutes outside; suit swelling nearly trapped him outside. |
| Luna 9 | Feb 3, 1966; first soft landing on the Moon The probe transmitted the first close-up images of the lunar surface. |
| Apollo 11 | Jul 20, 1969; first humans walked on the Moon Armstrong and Aldrin landed at Tranquility Base; Collins remained in orbit. |
| Salyut 1 | Apr 19, 1971; first space station launched Operated by the USSR; crewed by Soyuz 11, whose crew died during reentry. |
| STS-1 | Apr 12, 1981; first Space Shuttle flight Shuttle Columbia proved reusable, winged spacecraft could reach orbit and land. |
| Hubble Space Telescope | Apr 24, 1990; space telescope launched to orbit Deployed by Shuttle Discovery; servicing missions upgraded and repaired it. |
| Expedition 1 | Nov 2, 2000; ISS continuous human presence begins First resident crew docked to the ISS, starting unbroken habitation from 2000. |
| Shenzhou 5 | Oct 15, 2003; first Chinese crewed spaceflight Yang Liwei’s solo mission made China the third nation to launch humans. |
| Falcon 1 Flight 4 | Sep 28, 2008; first privately developed liquid rocket to orbit SpaceX succeeded on its fourth attempt, a key commercial space milestone. |
| Curiosity | Aug 6, 2012; Mars rover landing in Gale Crater The ‘sky crane’ landing enabled a 900 kg rover to search for habitability. |
| Voyager 1 | Aug 25, 2012; first spacecraft in interstellar space Crossed the heliopause after a 1977 launch; still returning scientific data. |
| Rosetta/Philae | Nov 12, 2014; first soft landing on a comet Philae touched down on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko after a decade-long journey. |
| New Horizons | Jul 14, 2015; first flyby of Pluto Revealed Pluto’s heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio; later flew by Arrokoth. |
| Falcon 9 Flight 20 | Dec 21, 2015; first vertical landing of orbital-class booster Boosters began landing routinely, enabling rapid reusability and lower costs. |
| Chang'e 4 | Jan 3, 2019; first soft landing on Moon's far side Used the Queqiao relay beyond the Moon to communicate from Von Kármán crater. |
| Hayabusa2 | Dec 5, 2020; asteroid samples returned to Earth Brought >5 g from asteroid Ryugu—far more than the first Hayabusa mission. |
| Perseverance | Feb 18, 2021; Mars rover landing in Jezero Crater Hunts for ancient life signs and caches samples for future return to Earth. |
| Ingenuity | Apr 19, 2021; first powered flight on another planet The Mars helicopter far exceeded its original 5-flight technology demo. |
| Zhurong | May 14, 2021; first Chinese rover on Mars Part of Tianwen-1; explored Utopia Planitia after a successful lander descent. |
| James Webb Space Telescope | Dec 25, 2021; next-gen space observatory launched Unfolded en route to Sun–Earth L2; observes in infrared to see early galaxies. |
| Artemis I | Nov 16, 2022; uncrewed lunar test flight of Orion SLS debut; Orion looped the Moon and splashed down Dec 11, 2022. |
| Chandrayaan-3 | Aug 23, 2023; first landing near lunar south polar region Made India the fourth nation to soft-land on the Moon with Vikram and Pragyan. |
| OSIRIS-REx | Sep 24, 2023; asteroid sample returned to Earth Delivered Bennu samples to Utah—the largest U.S. asteroid sample return. |