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Sputnik 1
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union put the first artificial satellite in Earth orbit. Sputnik's radio signal gave people on the ground a way to hear that the space age had begun.
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Sputnik 2
Sputnik 2 carried Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth. Her flight put a living passenger in orbit for the first time, and its one-way design left no way to bring her home.
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Explorer 1
The first U.S. satellite carried an instrument that revealed the radiation belts around Earth. It made a scientific discovery on the flight that also brought the United States into orbit.
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Vanguard 1
Solar cells let this little satellite draw power from sunlight. Vanguard 1 was the first solar-powered satellite, a demonstration of a power source that could outlast a launch-day battery.
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Luna 1
The probe missed the Moon but achieved a different milestone: it became the first spacecraft to escape Earth's gravity. It showed that an artificial object could leave Earth behind and enter an orbit around the Sun.
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Luna 2
A crash was the objective. Luna 2 reached the Moon's surface in September 1959, the first successful impact on another celestial body. The next step was to get equipment down in working condition.
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Luna 3
For the first time, a probe photographed the far side of the Moon. Luna 3 gave scientists a view they could never have obtained with a telescope on Earth.
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Korabl-Sputnik 2
Belka and Strelka survived an orbital flight and parachute recovery. Bringing the dogs back alive was the advance over Laika's mission, and it tested the kind of descent system the Soviet Union needed for a human passenger.
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Vostok 1
Yuri Gagarin completed a single orbit of Earth on the first human spaceflight. Soviet engineers had gone from testing whether a living passenger could return to sending a person all the way around the planet.
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Mercury-Redstone 3
Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 went up and came back down without circling Earth. That short flight made him the first American in space and shows how far the U.S. program still had to go to match Vostok 1.
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Vostok 2
Gherman Titov stayed in orbit for more than a day. His flight extended the single circuit of Vostok 1 into a test of living in orbit, where a cosmonaut would have time to eat, rest, and feel the effects of weightlessness.
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Mercury-Atlas 6
John Glenn's Friendship 7 reached a milestone the earlier Mercury flights had left open: an American in Earth orbit. The flight made it possible to compare a U.S. orbital flight directly with the Soviet Vostok missions.
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Telstar 1
Live television crossed the Atlantic by satellite when Telstar 1 relayed pictures from Maine to France. Its story shows how quickly the ability to put hardware in orbit turned into something people could use back on Earth.
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Mariner 2
A flyby of Venus made Mariner 2 the first successful planetary science mission. It turned a bright point in the sky into a place a spacecraft could measure up close.
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Vostok 6
Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, spending almost three days in orbit. It was a much longer flight than either country's first crewed mission.
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Ranger 7
With the craft headed for impact, its cameras kept sending close-up pictures of the Moon. The images showed detail that Earth-based photographs could not resolve and helped scientists judge where a crew could land.
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Voskhod 1
Three people flew in one capsule when the Soviet Union adapted the single-seat Vostok design into Voskhod. That put the first multi-person spacecraft in orbit.
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Mariner 4
The first successful Mars flyby sent back photographs of a cratered surface. Mariner 4 gave scientists close-range images of another planet instead of leaving them to interpret indistinct markings seen from Earth.
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Voskhod 2
Alexei Leonov stepped outside the capsule for the first spacewalk. A crew could now do something in space that required leaving the shelter of a cabin and relying on a suit.
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Gemini 3
Gus Grissom and John Young flew the first U.S. two-person mission and changed their orbit during flight. That control mattered: a spacecraft that could adjust its path could work its way toward another vehicle.
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Gemini 4
Ed White made the first U.S. spacewalk while James McDivitt stayed in the capsule. When the fuel in White's handheld maneuvering device ran out, he used his tether and the motion of his body to get around.
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