Updated 12.1.2014 A chronological list of manned and unmanned space missions from the U.S.A and elsewhere. This list is a work in progress. Quite a few of the astronauts mentioned here are portrayed in Persons of Interest, and many of them here. 1957-1004 Sputnik 1: The first successful orbital launch.
1957-1103 The dog Laika becomes the first terrestrial living being in space.
1959-0102 Luna 1: The first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric orbit.
1959- Luna 2: The first artificial object to reach another celestial body (the Moon).
1961-0131 First chimp in space aboard a NASA space capsule - there and back! - Life Magazine -
1961-0412 Vostok 1: Yuri Gagarin, first man in space.
1961-0505 Freedom 7: Alan Shepard. First manned Mercury flight; Shepard became the first American in space.
1962 Mariner 2. The first successful interplanetary flyby: at its closest at 34773 km from Venus.
1963-0515 Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7): Gordon Cooper - he became the first American to sleep in space during that 34-hour mission.
1963-0616 Vostok 6: Valentina Tereskova the first woman in space. Orbited the Earth 48 times.
1965- Mariner 4: First flyby of Mars. First close-up picture of Mars.
1965-0603 Gemini 4: Ed White and James McDivitt. White became the first American to walk in space. They both witnessed a UFO, and McDivitt alone the next day. Pictures taken of both, released by Nasa in 1985. - Streetcap1 -
1965-0821 Gemini 5: Gordon Cooper, Charles Conrad. Cooper's 2nd and last spaceflight.
1966-0131 Luna 9: The first automatic landing on another celestial body (the Moon), on Feb 3rd.
1966-0912 Gemini 11: Charles Conrad, Richard Gordon. They report to Mission Control that their craft was being observed by a UFO estimated at being about six miles away. The next day they observe another object, which they manage to capture on film. It travels so close to Gemini 11 that it would normally be very easy to identify but despite claims that it was, in fact, the Proton 3 satellite or parts thereof (claimed by NORAD), the object still remains unknown.- UFO Casebook -
1966-1111 Gemini 12: James Lovell, Buzz Aldrin. The 10th and final manned Gemini flight. The astronauts spotted on Nov 12 two UFO's approximately 1/2 mile from the spacecraft. They were observed for some period of time and photographs were taken.
1967-0221 Apollo 1: Virgil Grissom, Edward White II, Roger Chaffee - all three killed at launch.
1967-0423 Soyuz 1: Vladimir Komarov. The mission plan: rendezvous with Soyuz 2 and swap crew members before returning to Earth. Soyuz 1 was plagued with technical issues, and Komarov was killed during the return to Earth - the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight.
1967- Soyuz 2: Cancelled. Lucky for the cosmonauts involved, as they would have shared Komarov's fate.
1967-1109 Apollo 4: Unmanned, a test flight for Saturn V rocket. First launch from John F. Kennedy Space Center.
1968-0107 Surveyor 7: The seventh and last lunar lander of the American unmanned Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon. It landed three days later on the outer rim of Tycho.
1968-0404 Apollo 6: The final unmanned Apollo mission.
1968-1011 Apollo 7: Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele, R.Walter Cunningham. A test flight, and confidence-builder in the eve of greater things to come.
1968-1026 Soyuz 3: Georgy Beregovoy. Flew 81 times around the Earth.
1968-1221 Apollo 8: Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders. They became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, and then the first to directly see the far side of the Moon. During the flight, on Dec 25th, 1968 as the command module emerged from behind the Moon, Lovell
transmits "We have been informed that Santa Claus does exist!". As this occurred
on Christmas Day, many thought it was just Lovell's sense of humor
for the kiddies watching the broadcast. These days 'Santa Claus' is thought to be the
code word for UFOs, originally employed by Walter Schirra on the Mercury 8 flight. Borman and Lovell are reported to have seen a UFO also on Christmas Eve, and it is reported
that an unidentified language was picked up on one of the NASA frequencies used
during the mission.- Time video(4m41s) -
1969-0114 Soyuz 4: Vladimir Shatalov. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crew members from that spacecraft, and return to Earth. The previous three Soyuz flights were also dock attempts but all had failed for various reasons.1969-0115 Soyuz 5: Boris Volynov. It was the first-ever docking of two manned spacecraft of any nation, and the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another of any nation, the only time a transfer was accomplished with a space walk – two months before the US Apollo 9 performed the first ever internal crew transfer.
1969-0303 Apollo 9: James McDiVitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart.
1969-0518 Apollo 10: Thomas Stafford, John Young, Eugene Cernan. Its purpose was to be a dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 mission, testing all of the procedures and components of a Moon landing without actually landing on the Moon itself.
1969-0720 Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins. The first humans on the Moon - moonwalk on the 21st.
1969-1114 Apollo 12: Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, Richard Gordon. The sixth manned flight in the Apollo space program and the second to land on the Moon.
1970-0411 Apollo13: James Lovell, Jack Swigert, Fred Haise. The seventh manned mission and the third intended to land on the Moon. Lunar landing aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later.
1971-0131 Apollo 14: Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, Edgar Mitchell.The eighth manned mission in the Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon.Shepard and Mitchell spent about 33 hours on the Moon, with about 9½ hours on EVA.
1972-0416 Apollo 16: John Young, Charles Duke, Ken Mattingly. - Time -
1972-1207 Apollo17: Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt. The final mission of the Apollo lunar landing program, Cernan became "the last man on the Moon". A month later he said in a Los Angeles Times article: "I've been asked about UFOs and I've said publicly I thought they were somebody else, some other civilization". - YouTube(1m53s) -
1973- Pioneer 10: First flyby of Jupiter.
1973-0406 Pioneer 11 is launched. Flyby of Jupiter in 1974, of Saturn in 1979 - Time -
1973-1103 Mariner 10: Mission: to study Mercury and Venus. Reached Venus 5.2.1974, passed Mercury 1974-1975 at its closest at 327 km.
1974- Mariner 10: First flyby of Mercury.
1975-0715 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) was the first joint U.S.–Soviet space flight. Its primary purpose was as a symbol of the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time, and marked the end of the Space Race between them that began in 1957. Astronaut Donald Slayton, cosmonaut Alexey Leonov.
1975-0820 Viking 1 is launched toward Mars. Landing date Jul 20, 1976.
1975-0909 Viking 2 is launched towards Mars. Landing date Sep 3, 1976.
1976-0720 Viking 1 lands on Mars in western Chryse Planitia.
1976-0903 Viking 2 lands on Mars about 200 km west of the crater Mie in Utopia Planitia.
1977-0820 Voyager 2 is launched to study the outer Solar System, and eventually interstellar space. It reached Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1980, Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989. Each Voyager space probe carries a gold-plated audio-visual disc in the event that either spacecraft is ever found by intelligent life-forms from other planetary systems.
1977-0905 Voyager 1 is launched to study the outer Solar System, and eventually interstellar space. The first probe to provide detailed images of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons.
1979-0709 Flyby of Jupiter by Voyager 2 - it comes within 570,000 km (350,000 mi) of the planet's cloud tops.
1979-0901 Pioneer 11: First flyby of Saturn.
1981-0412 Columbia: The first spaceworthy Space Shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet.
1981-0825 Flyby of Saturn by Voyager 2 - closest approach occurs on August 26th.
1983-0404 Challenger: Space shuttle, maiden flight. Nine missions before the fatal one in 1986.
1984-0830 Discovery: Space shuttle. Several missions (August 1984-March 2011)
1985-1003 Atlantis: Spaceshuttle, NASA's 4th, Maiden flight. 33 missions and 156 individuals flew with Atlantis 1985-2011.
1986-0124 First flyby of Uranus, by Voyager 2 - it comes within 81,500 kilometers (50,600 mi) of the planet's cloud tops.
1986-0128 Challenger: Francis Scopee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Christa McAuliffe & Gregory Jarvis were all killed at launch. 10th Challenger mission.
1989-0824 First flyby of Neptune, by Voyager 2. Also its moon Triton. With the decision of the International Astronomical Union to reclassify Pluto as a "plutoid" in 2008, the flyby of Neptune became the point when every known planet in the Solar System had been visited at least once by a space probe.
1991-0405 STS-37 (Atlantis): Steven Nagel, Kenneth Cameron, Linda Godwin, Jerry Ross, Jay Apt. A sphere-shaped UFO is filmed from the space shuttle: UFO-TV(at13m55s) -
1992-05 Endeavour: Space shuttle, the fifth andf final one. Missions May 1992-May 2011.
1995-0203 STS-63 (Discovery): James Wetherbee, Eileen Collins, Bernard Harris, Michael Foale, Janice Voss, Vladimir Titov. The second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program. Possible UFO sighting?
1997-1015 Cassini-Huygens space probe. Mission: to study Saturn. Includes a Saturn orbiter and an atmospheric probe/lander for the moon Titan called Huygens, which entered and landed on Titan in 2005.
2000-0908 STS-106 (Atlantis): Terrence Wilcutt, Scott Altman, Edward Lu, Richard Mastracchio, Daniel Burbank, Yuri Malechenko and Boris Morukov. During the 12-day mission, the crew successfully prepared the International Space Station for the arrival of the first permanent crew.
2003-0116 Columbia: Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark & Ilan Ramon were all killed during reentry Feb 1st, 2003.
2003-0602 Mars Express launched by ESA - the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. Arrival at Mars in December 2003. - ESA:MarsExpress -Wiki -
2003-0610 Launch of Rover Spirit towards Mars.
2004-0703 Launch of Rover Opportunity towards Mars.
2004-01 Two robotic geologists named Spirit and Opportunity land on opposite sides of Mars.
2004-0103 Rover Spirit lands on Mars. On March 22, 2010 communication between Spirit and Earth stopped.
2004-0124 Rover Opportunity lands on Mars. As of June 20, 2013, Opportunity has moved 22.89 miles (36.84 km) since January 2004.
2004-0803 Messenger: mission to study Venus and Mercury. Ended 17.3.2013.
2005-0114 Cassini-Huygens space probe's atmospheric probe/lander Huygens enters and lands on Saturn's largest moon Titan.
2006- NASA reports that Cassini had found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus.
2006-0909 Launch of Atlantis mission STS-115: Brent Jett, Chris Ferguson, Steven MacLean, Daniel Burbank, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joseph Tanner. On September 20th three UFOs are seen, dicussed between Commander Brent Jett and mission control - YouTube(9m45s) -
2009-0511 Launch of Atlantis mission STS-125, the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Scott Altman, Gregory Johnson, Michael Good, Megan McArthur, John Grunsfeld, Michael Massimino, Andrew Feustel. UFOs caught on film? YouTube(5m59s) 2009-0618 Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is launched. Mission: to detect water on the Moon. Impact on Cabeus Crater occurs on Oct 9th, and on Nov 13th NASA confirms that water was detected after the Centaur impacted the crater. YouTube:NASABombsTheMoon!(5m27s) -
2009-0618 Also launched: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - currently orbiting the Moon in a low 50 km polar mapping orbit and sending photo data back to Earth. The LRO mission is a precursor to future manned missions to the Moon by NASA. - NASA: LRO - Wiki -
2011-0708 Launch of the last Atlantis mission, STS-135: Christopher Ferguson, Douglas Hurley, Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim.
2011-0805 Launch of Juno, due to reach Jupiter July 4, 2016. - Nasa -
2011-0929 Launch of Tiangong-1 - China's first space station - unmanned.
2011-1126 Mars rover Curiosity is launched. Lands on Mars on Aug 6, 2012. - launch video(3m59s)
2011-1221 ESA-mission: André Kuipers, Oleg Kononenko, Don Pettit from Baikonur Kosmodrom in Kazachstan.
2012-0616 Launch of Shenzhou 9. The mission's crew included the first Chinese female astronaut, Liu Yang.
2012-0806 Mars rover Curiosity lands in Gale Crater on Mars .
2012-0825 Voyager 1 leaves Solar System and enters interstellar space - Space:It's Official! Voyager 1 Has Left Solar System -
2013-0313 Expedition 36 Chris Cassidy, Pavel Vinogradov, Alexander Misurkin. Arrival at the ISS (International Space Station) the same day - first crew to make a single-day rendezvous to the orbiting outpost!
2013-0611 Launch of Shenzhou 10, China's fifth manned space mission. Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang, Yaping Wang, the second female taigonaut. Docking with the Tiangong-1 trial space laboratory module. Wang told school children through a live video feed system that "through the front windows, we can see the Earth and many other stars, but up till now, we haven't seen any UFOs".
2013-0910-2258 EDT Expedition 36 trio returns to Earth (Kazakhstan) after nearly six months in space at the ISS. - Nasa -
2013-1105 India launches the Mars Orbiter Mission, its first interplanetary probe.
The ESA (European Space Agency) has plans to land humans on Mars between 2030 and 2035.
Astronomical and other abbreviations:
EDT - Eastern Daylight Time
ESA - European Space Agency
EVA - Extra-vehicular activity (e.g. spacewalks, moonwalks)
ISS - International Space Station
NASA - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Links
- Kelso'sCorner:HowTheMoonWasMapped -
