FX.co ★ Ten significant achievements in space exploration

First ever image of Earth taken from space

The first photograph of the Earth taken from space in 1946 became the first ever success in space activity. It was a black-and-white image that seemed to consist of small grains and barely resembled photos of our planet.

The first colored photo, the Blue Marble, was taken from the spacecraft Apollo 17 only 26 years later in 1972. The image had a significant meaning for humankind.

First ever Mars landing

The first spacecraft to ever land on the surface of Mars in 1997 did a great job in exploring the territory of the ‘Red Planet’.

A Soviet robotic space probe Mars-3 made a soft landing and had been sending scientists information about the topography and properties of the Martian soil for several months.

First ever flight to outlet planets

In 1972, the Pioneer 10 traveled to Jupiter through a large asteroid belt. It had successfully completed its mission, disproving the myth that it was impossible to reach planets located on the other side of the belt.

The space probe sent its first pictures of Jupiter to Earth, and flew further into open space. In 1983, Pioneer 10 left the Solar System, becoming the first man-made object outside the system.

First ever spacewalk

In 1965, when Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov left the spacecraft Voskhod-2, he became the first man in the history of humankind to carry out a spacewalk.

Risking his own life, he took several photographs and practiced in moving in space. Further developments in the space industry were based on those materials.

Launch of first International Space Station

For the period from 1998 to 2000, numerous experiments were made to launch the first module of the International Space Station (ISS). The first astronauts stepped aboard soon after that.

Research on how weightlessness and a long stay in space affected the human body were the most important.

For the time astronauts had been working on the ISS, it became clear that a long-term stay in space was possible. The United States and the USSR had the greatest experience in building orbital stations by the end of the 20th century. Currently, most advanced scientific research in space continues.

Launch of first artificial satellite

Ahead of the space race of the late 50s – early 70s of the 20th century, the launch of an artificial satellite sparked interest of the entire world community of space scientists.

Sputnik 1, made in the USSR, was launched in 1957, a few years before the famous flight of Yuri Gagarin. Its purpose was to transmit radio signals and collect information about the Earth’s atmosphere.

Launch of Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope is an automatic observatory operating on the Earth’s orbit. Its launch took place in 1990. At that time it was one of the most complex spacecrafts.

The telescope made countless striking images of the Solar System and became a trigger for serious research. Soon, the expansion rate of the Universe was calculated as well as other remarkable discoveries were made.

First animal to orbit the Earth

The launch of a stray dog Laika into space helped scientists to find out if living beings could survive outside the Earth.

Though, the further fate of the animal remained unknown, Laika paved the way for a man to fly into space in 1961.

First man in space

Seems like everyone knows about the flight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space.

Laika’s flight had a great impact on Russian cosmonautics and on April 12, 1961, the first man left the atmosphere of the Earth and went into outer space. To say the least, the whole world was watching the flight of the spacecraft Vostok 1.

First people on Moon

According to modern scientists, landing of the first people on the Moon is the main achievement in the space technology development. American Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon in 1969. His colleagues Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins remained on board of Apollo 11.

Since then, science relied on the opportunity to visit other celestial bodies of the Solar System. The last such journey was the landing of the Rosetta spacecraft on the surface of a moving comet in 2016.