August 27, 1962 is the 33rd anniversary of the launch of the Mariner 2 spacecraft which completed the first successful interplanetary flyby when it passed by Venus. (8/25/95)
Sept. 9, 1975 marks the 20th anniversary of the Viking 2 launch to Mars. Viking 2 consisted of an orbiter and a lander, both of which were highly successful in providing information about Mars during the late 1970's, along with their sister ships, the Viking 1 lander and Viking 1 orbiter. (9/1/95)
September 15, 1990 marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. Magellan spacecraft's complete radar mapping of the surface of Venus. Radar is able to penetrate Venus' thick, cloudy atmosphere. Data from Magellan have led to several significant scientific discoveries about our sister planet. (9/8/95)
September 23, 1846, Neptune was discovered on September 23, 1846 by J. Galle at Berlin Observatory. It was the eighth planet discovered. (9/18/95)
On Sept. 26, 1993, the Galileo spacecraft completed transmitting pictures of the asteroid Ida. From these images, the first moon orbiting an asteroid was discovered. This tiny moon orbiting Ida was later named Dactyl. (9/25/95)
October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, was launched, thus beginning the Space Age. (10/2/95)
Oct. 11, 1945, marks the 50th anniversary of the first escape of a man-made object from Earth's atmosphere. That object was a WAC Corporal rocket that was launched from the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. The rocket reached a height of 43.5 miles, setting a new world record. It had a flight time of 7.5 minutes, and crashed only 3,500 feet from its launch pad. (10/9/95)
October 22 marks the 4,131st anniversary of the first known recorded solar eclipse, which was recorded by astronomers in China. (10/16/95)
October 25, 1975, the Russian Venera 10 spacecraft landed on Venus and survived for 65 minutes in the high pressure and temperature environment of Venus' surface. Three days before, Venera 9 had survived for 53 minutes. (10/23/95)
November 13, 1971, the U.S. Mariner 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to go into orbit around Mars. When it first arrived, Mars was in the midst of a global dust storm, effectively obscuring the surface. However, as the dust cleared, Mariner 9 provided the first complete photographic spacecraft mapping of the surface of Mars. (11/13/95)
November 30, 1954, a 10-pound meteorite punched a hole in the roof of a house in Alabama and hit a sleeping Elizabeth Hodges. She sustained only minor injuries. This is one of the only recorded instances of a meteorite hitting a human. (11/27/95)
December 7, 1972, Apollo 17, the last manned lunar mission, was launched. It was the only Apollo night launch. (12/4/95)
December 14, 1962, the first flyby of another planet by a spacecraft occurred on Dec. 14, 1962 as the U.S. robotic spacecraft MARINER 2 flew past Venus. Ten years later, on Dec. 14, 1972, APOLLO 17 astronaut Gene Cernan became the last astronaut to walk on the Moon. (12/11/95)
December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 was launched on Dec. 21, 1968. It was the first manned mission to go around the Moon. On Dec. 24, the astronauts aboard trasmitted a live TV broadcast of readings from the Book of Genesis. (12/18/95)
January 1, 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi made the first discovery of an asteroid. This asteroid was later named Ceres. (12/27/95)
January 7, 1610, Galileo discovered Jupiter's moons Io, Europa, and Callisto. Several days later he discovered the one remaining large satellite of Jupiter, Ganymede. These four moons are now called the Galilean satellites in honor of their discoverer. Galileo's discovery of these objects orbiting around another planet helped overturn the long held belief that all objects revolved around the Earth. The Galileo spacecraft, which went into orbit around Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995 will complete several flybys of the Galilean satellites during its two year mission. (1/3/96)
January 11, 1787, William Herschel discovered Titania and Oberon, the two largest moons of Uranus. (1/10/96)
January 21, 1960, the U.S. launched a Mercury capsule on a suborbital flight carrying a Rhesus monkey named Miss Sam. (1/17/96)
January 27, 1967: Apollo 1 astronauts White, Grissom, and Chaffee die in cockpit fire during launchpad test.
January 28, 1986: Space Shuttle Challenger explodes killing astronauts: Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair, McAuliffe, and Jarvis.
January 24, 1986: Voyager 2 completed the first and only spacecraft flyby of Uranus. (1/24/96)
January 31, 1958: Launch of Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite.
February 5, 1971: Apollo 14 executed the third manned lunar landing.
February 6, 1971: Alan Shepard hits a golf ball on the Moon a reported 400 yards. (1/31/96)
February 7, 1984: Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart float up to 300 feet away from the Space Shuttle Challenger in the first ever untethered spacewalks. The spacewalks were accomplished using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), a backpack device which contains small thrusters that the astronaut can control. (2/7/96)
February 19, 1986: The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station. Several modules have since been added to the original space station.
February 20, 1962: John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, completing three orbits in the "Friendship Seven" Mercury spacecraft. (2/14/96)
February 23, 1987: Supernova 1987a explosion observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This was the first naked eye supernova since 1604 and the first since the invention of the telescope. (2/21/96)
March 5, 1979: Voyager 1 executed its fly-by of Jupiter. (2/28/96)
March 8, 1979: Voyager 1 returned the first photos showing active volcanoes on a body other than Earth. They were discovered on Jupiter's moon Io, which appears to be the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. (3/6/96)
March 16, 1926, Seventy years ago, Robert Goddard launched the first successful liquid fuel rocket.
March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov made the first ever space walk for 10 minutes aboard Voskhod 2.
March 16, 1966: Gemini 8 launched. The mission included the first docking of two orbiting spacecraft. (3/13/96)
March 23, 1965: Gemini 3, the first two-man American space mission, was launched; astronaut Gus Grissom became the first man to travel in space twice.
March 25, 1655: Christiaan Huygens discovered Saturn's moon Titan. Titan will be explored by a spacecraft for the first time in the year 2004, when the joint American / European Cassini mission reaches the ringed planet. The probe that will enter Titan's atmosphere has been named Huygens in honor of the moon's discoverer. (3/20/96)
March 29, 1974: Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to fly by Mercury.
April 2, 1959: NASA selected original seven Mercury astronauts. (3/27/96)
April 3, 1966: The Soviet Luna 10 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon.
April 8, 1964: Launch of the unmanned Gemini 1 spacecraft, precursor to the U.S. manned Gemini program. [4/3/96)
April 12, 1961: Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space.
April 12, 1981: First Space Shuttle launch occurred. During the STS-1 mission, astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen on board the shuttle Columbia orbited the Earth for a little over two days. (4/10/96)
April 19, 1971: The Soviet Union launches Salyut 1, the first space station.
April 23, 1967: Cosmonaut Vladimir Kamarov dies in Soviet Soyuz 1 capsule when parachute fails to open properly. First in-flight space fatality. (4/17/96)
April 25, 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed.
April 24, 1970: China launched its first satellite. (4/24/96)
May 4, 1989: The space shuttle STS-30 mission was launched, carrying on board the Magellan spacecraft which was released to begin its 10-month journey to Venus. Magellan was an extremely successful Venus radar mapping mission.
May 5, 1961: 35 years ago, Alan Shepard made a suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft to become the first American in space. (5/1/96)
May 24, 1962: Scott Carpenter becomes the first American to eat food in space aboard the Mercury spacecraft Aurora 7.
May 25, 1973: First Skylab crew begins a four week mission.
May 28, 1958: U.S. launches the first primates in space, Able and Baker, on a suborbital flight. (5/24/96)
June 3, 1965: Ed White, as part of the Gemini 4 mission, performed the first American space walk.
June 3, 1948: The 200 inch Hale telescope was dedicated at Palomar Observatory. It was the largest optical/infrared telescope in the world for decades and now ranks fourth in size. (5/31/96)
June 8, 1959: NASA's X-15 was flown for the first time: an unpowered gliding descent.
June 8, 1965: Launch of the USSR's Luna 6 for a lunar flyby. It passed within 100,000 miles of the Moon. (6/7/96)
June 16, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 became the first woman in space. This is still the only solo spaceflight of a woman.
June 18, 1983: Sally Ride aboard the STS-7 space shuttle mission became the first American woman in space. (6/14/96)
June 22, 1978: James Christy discovered Pluto's moon, Charon. (6/21/96)
June 30, 1908: The Tunguska event, the explosion of a large meteoroid in the Earth’s atmosphere, leveled hundreds of miles of Siberian forest.
July 4, 1054: Chinese astronomers observed the supernova, a large explosion of a star accompanied by a large temporary increase in its brightness, in Taurus that formed the Crab Nebula. (6/28/96)
July 9, 1979: Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Jupiter, on its way towards Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune flybys.
July 10, 1962: Telstar 1 launched, allowing transatlantic transmission of TV signals.
July 11, 1979: Skylab, America’s first space station, re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, burning up harmlessly over the Indian Ocean and the Australian outback. (7/5/96)
July 14, 1965: Mariner 4 executed the first successful Mars flyby.
July 17, 1975: U.S. Apollo astronauts and U.S.S.R. Soyuz cosmonauts shook hands in space during the Apollo-Soyuz mission. (7/12/96)
July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon, becoming the first human to ever walk on another world. Eleven other astronauts followed over the next four years.
July 20, 1976: The U.S. Viking 1 lander landed on Mars, becoming the first successful Mars lander. (7/19/96)
July 26, 1971: The Apollo 15 manned lunar landing mission was launched. Apollo 15 was the first mission to use the lunar rover.
July 28, 1964: Ranger 7, the first successful lunar probe was launched. It was sent on a collision coarse with the Moon, returning images until its (intentional) 7,500 kph (4,700 mph) impact. (7/26/96)
Aug. 7, 1959: Explorer 6 was launched. This was the first satellite to return pictures of the Earth from space. (8/2/96)
Aug. 10, 1966: Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched. It was the first in a series of unmanned orbiters that sent back images of potential Apollo lunar landing sites. (8/9/96)
Aug. 20, 1977: Voyager 2 was launched. One of the most successful missions in history, Voyager 2 visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (8/16/96)
Aug. 25, 1981: Voyager 2 flew past Saturn
Aug. 24, 1989: Almost exactly 8 years later, Voyager 2 flew past Neptune. (8/23/96)
Sept. 1, 1979: Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to fly past Saturn.
Sept. 3, 1976: The Viking 2 lander successfully landed on Mars.
Sept. 5, 1977: Voyager 1 was launched. (8/30/96)
Sept. 9, 1975: The U.S. Viking 2 spacecraft was launched to Mars. It contained an orbiter and a lander, both of which were highly successful, as were its sister spacecraft on board Viking 1.
Sept. 12, 1959: The Soviet Luna 2 spacecraft was launched. It was the first spacecraft to impact another celestial body (the Moon). (9/6/96)
September 15, 1990: The U.S. Magellan spacecraft began its complete radar mapping of the surface of Venus. Radar is able to penetrate Venus' thick, cloudy atmosphere. (9/13/96)
Sept. 20, 1977: The U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 was launched. It completed the "grand tour" of the Solar System, successfully flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (9/20/96)
Oct. 1, 1958: NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was founded.
Oct. 3, 1985: The Space Shuttle Atlantis was first launched. (9/27/96)
Oct. 4, 1957: Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, was launched, thus beginning the Space Age.
Oct. 10, 1846: William Lassell discovered Neptune's large moon Triton, less than three weeks after J.G. Galle discovered Neptune. (10/4/96)
Oct. 12, 1964: The Soviet Voskhod 1 mission was launched. This was the first three-man space flight.
Oct. 13, 1968: The first live TV broadcast of humans in space occurred during the Apollo 7 mission. (10/11/96)
Oct. 22, 2136 B.C.: Astronomers in China made what is now the oldest surviving record of a total solar eclipse.
Oct. 22, 1965: The Soviet Venera 9 spacecraft landed on Venus and survived for 53 minutes in the high pressure and temperature environment of Venus' surface. (10/18/96)
Oct. 29, 1991: The U.S. Galileo spacecraft, on its way to Jupiter, successfully encountered the asteroid Gaspra, obtaining images and other data during its flyby. This was the first such close encounter with an asteroid. (10/25/96)
Nov. 6, 1966: Lunar Orbiter 2 was launched. It was the second of five robotic lunar orbiters launched by the U.S. to survey the Moon, and in particular, potential Apollo landing sites. (11/01/96)
Nov. 12, 1966: Astronauts on board Gemini 12, the last flight of the Gemini program, viewed a Solar eclipse from space.
Nov. 12, 1980: Voyager 1 flew past Saturn.
Nov. 13, 1971: Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to go into orbit around Mars, and eventually map the entire surface of the planet. (11/8/96)
Nov. 19, 1969: Apollo 12 made the second human lunar landing. (11/18/96)
Dec. 14, 1962: The first flyby of another planet by a spacecraft occurred as the U.S. robotic spacecraft MARINER 2 flew past Venus.
Dec. 14, 1972: Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan became the last astronaut to walk on the Moon. (12/9/96)
Dec. 24, 1968: Apollo 8 astronauts, shortly after becoming the first humans to go around the far side of the Moon, transmitted a live TV broadcast of readings from the Book of Genesis.
Dec. 27, 1571: Johannes Kepler was born. (12/23/96)
Jan. 1, 1801: Giuseppe Piazzi made the first discovery of an asteroid. This asteroid was later named Ceres. (12/30/96)
Jan. 7, 1610: Galileo discovered Jupiter's moons Io, Europa, and Callisto. Several days later he discovered the one remaining large satellite of Jupiter, Ganymede. These four moons are now called the Galilean satellites in honor of their discoverer. Galileo's discovery of these objects orbiting around another planet helped overturn the long held belief that all objects revolved around the Earth. The Galileo spacecraft, which went into orbit around Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995 is doing several flybys of the Galilean satellites during its two year mission. (1/6/97)
Jan. 13, 1610: Galileo discovered Jupiter's moon Ganymede, later found to be the largest moon in the Solar System. (1/13/97)
Jan. 27, 1967: Apollo 1 astronauts White, Grissom, and Chaffee died in a cockpit fire during a launchpad test.
Jan. 28, 1986: The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded killing astronauts Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair, McAuliffe, and Jarvis.
Jan. 24, 1986: Voyager 2 completed the first and only spacecraft flyby of Uranus. (1/22/97)
Jan. 31, 1958: Explorer 1 was launched. It was the first successful U.S. satellite.
Jan. 29, 1989: The Soviet Phobos 2 spacecraft went into orbit around Mars. It obtained various data about Mars and its moon Phobos before failing prematurely two months later. (1/29/97)
Feb. 18, 1930: Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.
Feb. 19, 1986: The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.
Feb. 20, 1962: John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. (2/12/97)
Apr. 8, 1964: Unmanned Gemini 1 launched. (9/8/97)
May 14, 1973: Skylab was launched.
May 18, 1969: Apollo 10 was launched, a dry run for the first lunar landing. (5/7/97)
May 30, 1971: The Mariner 9 probe was launched to Mars. It was the first Martian orbiter and the first spacecraft to map the entire surface of the red planet.
June 3, 1965: Ed White, during Gemini 4, became the first American to walk in space. (5/2/97)
July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon, becoming the first human to ever walk on another world. Eleven other astronauts followed over the next four years.
July 20, 1976: The U.S. Viking 1 lander landed on Mars, becoming the first successful Mars lander. (7/18/97)
Aug. 7, 1959: Explorer 6 was launched. This was the first satellite to return pictures of the Earth from space.
Aug. 10, 1966: Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched. It was the first in a series of unmanned orbiters that sent back images of potential Apollo lunar landing sites. (8/4/97)
Aug. 25, 1981: Voyager 2 flew past Saturn.
Aug. 24, 1989: Voyager 2 flew past Neptune.
Sept. 1, 1979: Pioneer 11 became 1st spacecraft to fly past Saturn.
Sept. 3, 1976: The Viking 2 lander successfully landed on Mars.
Sept. 5, 1977: Voyager 1 was launched.
September 15, 1990: The U.S. Magellan spacecraft began its complete radar mapping of the surface of Venus.
Sept. 20, 1977: The U.S. Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched. It completed the "grand tour" of the Solar System, successfully flying by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (9/15/97)
The Space Age began forty years ago on Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched the first Earth-orbiting spacecraft, Sputnik. (10/22/97)
Nov. 13, 1971: the Mariner 9 spacecraft achieved Mars orbit. Mariner 9 was the first successful Mars orbiting spacecraft, and spent nearly a year photographing and mapping Mars. Mariner 9 also took the first close-up pictures of Mars’ tiny moons Phobos and Deimos. (11/20/97)
Dec. 7, 1972: Apollo 17, the last manned lunar landing mission, blasted off from Cape Kennedy. Apollo 17 was the first manned spacecraft to be launched at night. Apollo 17 returned to Earth on Dec. 19 with 243 pounds of lunar rock and soil samples. (12/4/97)
Dec. 21, 1968: Apollo 8 was launched. It was the first manned
mission to go around the Moon.
Dec. 27, 1571: Johannes Kepler was born. (12/18/97)
Jan. 7, 1610: Galileo discovered Jupiter's moons Io, Europa, and Callisto. Several days later he discovered the one remaining large satellite of Jupiter, Ganymede. These four moons are now called the Galilean satellites in honor of their discoverer. Galileo's discovery of these objects orbiting around another planet helped overturn the long held belief that all objects revolved around the Earth. The Galileo spacecraft, which went into orbit around Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995, has completed several flybys of the Galilean satellites during its two year primary mission, and now has several more flybys scheduled during its extended mission. (1/8/98)
Jan. 24, 1986: Launched in 1977, the U.S. Voyager 2 spacecraft zooms past Uranus, the third of of its four planetary encounters. Three years later Voyager 2 will fly by the planet Neptune to complete a "grand tour" of the outer planets, returning a wealth of new data and spectacular images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and many of their moons.
Jan. 28, 1986: Tragedy strikes the U.S. space program as seven astronauts, including the first school teacher in space, are killed when the space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff.
Jan. 29, 1989: The Russian Phobos 2 spacecraft entered orbit around the planet Mars. Although contact with the Phobos spacecraft was lost shortly after it arrived at Mars, it still returned important new information and images of the red planet and its two diminutive moons. (1/15/98)
Jan. 30, 1868: Tens of thousands of meteorites bombarded the countryside near Pultusk, a small town just north of Warsaw, Poland. The meteorites were fragments of an asteroid, perhaps five or six meters in diameter, that exploded when it slammed into the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of several dozen kilometers per second. Most of the recovered fragments were about the size of peas, but the largest weighed some 10 kilograms.
Feb. 3, 1966: The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 makes the first soft-landing on the Moon.
Feb. 8, 1600: Italian monk Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for supporting the notion that the Sun lies at the center of the solar system. (1/30/98)
Feb. 15, 1564: Galileo Galilei, arguably the greatest scientist of the Renaissance, and the first person to point a telescope at the stars and record his observations, was born. Galileo discovered mountains and craters on the Moon, sunspots, and the four largest satellites of Jupiter, which are collectively known as the Galilean satellites.
Feb. 18, 1930: The planet Pluto was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Pluto is generally the most distant planet in the solar system, but its highly elliptical orbit brings it slightly closer to the Sun than Neptune for a few years every 250 years. Pluto is presently closer to the Sun than Neptune.
Feb. 20, 1962: Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Glenn, now a U.S. Senator from the state of Ohio, will return to space aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle sometime in October. (2/15/98)
Mar. 1, 1966: The Soviet Union’s Venera 1 probe became the first spacecraft to land on the planet Venus. Due to a runaway greenhouse effect, temperatures on the surface of Venus reach 900 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mar. 3, 1972: Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida.
Mar. 10, 1977: Astronomers discovered a system of rings around the planet Uranus. (3/1/98)
Mar. 18, 1965: Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to "walk" in space.
Mar. 25, 1655: Saturn’s giant moon Titan was discovered by the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens. Titan features an atmosphere thicker than Earth’s, comprised primarily of nitrogen. In the year 2004, the Cassini spacecraft will release a probe named in Huygen’s honor to study the atmosphere and surface of Titan.
Mar. 29, 1974: The U.S. Mariner 10 spacecraft becomes the first, and so far the only spacecraft to fly-by Mercury, closest planet to the Sun. Mariner 10 passed by Mercury three times, photographing a total of 54 percent of the planet’s surface. (3/15/98)
Apr. 3, 1966: The Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon.
Apr. 12, 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel in space, making one complete orbit of the Earth.
Apr. 13, 1970: An oxygen tank explosion aboard the U.S. Apollo 13 spacecraft threatened the lives of the third crew of astronauts headed for a Moon landing. (4/1/98)
Apr. 23, 1992: The U.S. Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) spacecraft detects the first evidence of structure in the residual radiation left over from the Big Bang that created the Universe.
Apr. 24, 1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir M. Komarov dies as his Soyuz spacecraft returns to Earth from orbit, the first and so far the only space explorer to perish during re-entry.
Apr. 25, 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope is released into Earth orbit by the space shuttle Discovery. (4/15/98)