Key dates in space exploration

2004-09-27 12:11

Paris - Following are key dates in the history of space travel and exploration:

1957

October 4: USSR launches first satellite Sputnik 1.

November 3: Russian dog Laika becomes first live animal in space but dies aboard Sputnik 2.

1958

January 31: United States launches first satellite Explorer 1.

October 1: American space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) created.

1959

January 2: Soviet satellite Luna 1 launched towards the Moon, first craft to leave Earth's gravity.

September 12: Radio-controlled Soviet satellite Luna 2 crashes into the Moon.

October 7: Soviet probe Luna 3 transmits the first images of the hidden side of the Moon.

1961

April 12: Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin becomes first man in space, completing a single, 108-minute orbit aboard Vostok 1.

May 5: US launches a Mercury spacecraft, carrying astronaut Alan Shepard in a sub-orbital flight. First American in orbit is John Glenn, in February 1962.

May 25: US President John F. Kennedy announces the Apollo programme and that America aims to place a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

1962

February 20: American John Glenn completes three orbits of the earth.

August 27: US launches a probe to Venus, USSR fires a probe to Mars in November.

1963: First space flight by a woman, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.

1965

Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov undertakes first spacewalk during a 26-hour flight.

1967

Launchpad blaze kills all three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, aboard Apollo 1 (January). Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov killed when Soyuz 1 parachute fails (April).

1968

Apollo 8 becomes first manned spaceship to fly around the Moon.

1969

Man lands on the Moon (Apollo 11). US astronauts Neil Armstrong, then Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become first men to set foot on the Moon.

1971

April 19: USSR launches first orbital space station, Salyut 1

June 29: Three cosmonauts on Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolsky, Vladmir Volkov and Viktor Patsaiev die during descent of their module.

1972: Last manned flight to the Moon (Apollo 17).

1973: Nasa launches Skylab station into orbit.

1975

May 31: European Space Agency created.

July 18: A US Apollo spacecraft docks with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft while in Earth orbit, in first international co-operative space flight.

1976

July 20: US Viking 1 lands on Mars.

1979

September 1: US Pioneer 11 probe passes Saturn and discovers an additional ring and two moons around the planet.

1981: Maiden voyage of the US space shuttle Columbia, the first reusable manned spacecraft.

1986

Space shuttle Challenger explodes on lift-off, killing all seven astronauts.

1990

April 24: Launch of of the Hubble Space Telescope, a joint venture between Nasa and the European Space Agency, which has provides spectacular images that revolutionise the field of astronomy.

1997

September 11: US Mars Global Surveyor, begins orbiting the Red Planet to conduct a two-year mapping survey of Martian surface.

1999

China carries out first unmanned flight of its own spacecraft.

2000

Two Russians and one American become the first occupants of the International Space Station (ISS).

2001

March 23: Soviet-Russian space station Mir is destroyed after 15 years in service.

April 28: World's first space tourist, US millionaire Dennis Tito, scheduled to be taken to ISS.

2002:

April 25: South African Mark Shuttleworth is taken to the International Space Station by Russian cosmonauts.

2003

February 1: Shuttle Columbia disintegrates over Texas upon re-entry killing seven astronaunts: six Americans and the first Israeli in space.

October 16: China becomes third nation to complete a space flight commanded by astronaut Yang Liwei.

2004

January 3: Nasa's Spirit rover lands on Mars.

January 14: President George W Bush unveils plans for a return to the Moon as early as 2015, as a launchpad for manned missions to Mars and "across our solar system."

June 21: A US rocket plane, SpaceShipOne, becomes the first privately-financed manned flight into space, reaching an altitude of 100 kilometres after being launched from Mojave, California, and is installed as favourite to take the $10m Ansari X Prize for the first mission to send three people into space within a two-week timespan.

August 8: A private rocket, built by Space Transport Corp and the latest contender for the Ansari X Prize, is launched off the north-west Pacific coast of the United States but blows up on take-off. Further teams from Argentina, Britain, Canada, Israel, Romania, Russia and the US have launches in the pipeline.

September 27: British airline magnate Richard Branson announces a plan for the world's first commercial space flights, saying "thousands" of fee-paying astronauts could be sent into orbit in the near future.

- AFP