Timeline of Important Events

October 4, 1957--Soviet Union launches Sputnik I. January 31, 1958--United States launches Explorer I from Cape Canaveral in Florida. October 1, 1958--NASA is formed after Congress passes the National Aeronautics and Space Act. April 12, 1961--Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to enter space and return safely. May 5, 1961--With the launch of Freedom 7, Alan Shepard becomes the first American man in space. The suborbital flight, which was part of the Mercury Project, lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds. May 25, 1961--U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces the goal of sending astronauts to the moon before the end of the decade. February 20, 1962--Launch of Friendship 7 (also part of the Mercury Project) makes astronaut John Glenn the first American to go into orbit. Total flight time was just shy of five hours. November 9, 1967--First test flight of the Saturn V rocket, which would carry dozens of spacecraft into space in the years to come July 16, 1969--Launch of Apollo 11 July 20, 1969--Astronauts Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Historic Apollo 11 Mission and Neil Armstrong become the first men to walk on the moon. May 14, 1973--United States launches its first experimental space station, the Skylab. July 15, 1975--Apollo-Soyuz Test Project is the first international manned space flight to test out cooperated space rescue and docking. August 20, 1975--Launch of Viking 1, the first orbiter and lander sent to Mars. Viking 2 would launch a few weeks later. Both landed safely on Mars and for six years sent back the first set of images and data from the Martian surface. August 20, 1977--Launch of Voyager 2, one of a pair of spacecraft sent by NASA on what was supposed to be a five-year Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission to study Jupiter and Saturn.

Voyagers 1 and 2 continue to send back pictures and data today, 30 years later from nearly 10 billion miles away. September 5, 1977--Launch of Voyager 1 April 12, 1981--Aboard the space shuttle Columbia, Robert L. Crippen and John W. Young make the first mission in NASA's space shuttle program. February 3-11, 1994--Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev becomes the first Russian to fly aboard a U.S. space shuttle. November 20, 1998--First piece of the International Space Station is launched.

Space Shuttle Program