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Moon Day: July 20 of Every Year
The General Assembly of United Nations declared International Moon Day, a United Nations-designated international day to be observed annually on 20 July, in its resolution 76/76 on “International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space” in 2021. International Moon Day marks the anniversary of the first landing by humans on the Moon as part […]
May 7, 1992: Space Shuttle Endeavour Launches on its Maiden Voyage
On May 7, 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour launched on its first flight. Endeavour was the fifth and last space shuttle that was ever built, and STS-49 was the first of 25 missions to fly on it. The purpose of this mission was to retrieve a satellite called Intelsat 603, which had failed to reach […]
May 6, 1968: Neil Armstrong Barely Escapes Fiery Crash
On May 6, 1968, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong almost met his fate while simulating a lunar landing. This was a little over a year before he would become the first person to walk on the moon. He was flying in a machine called the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston […]
May 5, 1961: Alan Shepard Becomes the First American in Space
On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space […]
May 3, 1986: Delta Rocket Fails to Launch GOES-G Weather Satellite
On May 3, 1986, NASA attempted to launch a new weather satellite called GOES-G for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but the rocket malfunctioned in mid-air. About a minute after it lifted off from Cape Canaveral, lightning struck the Delta rocket and created a short circuit. This caused the rocket’s main engine to shut […]
May 1, 1949: Nereid the Moon of Neptune is Discovered.
On May 1, 1949, Neptune’s moon Nereid was discovered by the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper. This was the second of 14 moons discovered at Neptune. It was also the last one to be discovered with certainty before NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune in 1989. Astronomers suspected they had observed a third moon before, […]
April 30, 2015: Messenger Spaceprobe Crashes to Mercury
On April 30, 2015, NASA’s MESSENGER Mercury mission came to an end when the spacecraft intentionally crashed into the surface of the small, rocky planet. MESSENGER was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury and the second spacecraft to study it up close after NASA’s Mariner 10 flew by the planet in the 1970s. MESSENGER spent […]
April 29, 1985: European ‘Spacelab’ Launches on Space Shuttle Challenger
On April 29, 1985, the European Space Agency’s Spacelab launched on the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51B. This was the second time the Spacelab went to space and the first time it flew in a fully operational configuration. Spacelab pallets had flown to space on three previous shuttle missions, but this was the first […]
April 28, 2001: World’s 1st Space Tourist Launches to International Space Station
On April 28, 2001, the world’s first space tourist hitched a ride to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The 60-year-old businessman and multimillionaire Dennis Tito funded his own trip to space, and it cost him $20 million. He originally signed a deal with a private company called MirCorp to fly to […]
April 27, 1961: NASA Launches Explorer 11
On April 27, 1961, NASA launched Explorer 11, a satellite that contained the first gamma ray telescope to go to space. This marked the birth of space-based gamma ray astronomy. Gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation and have the highest energy of any kind of wave in the electromagnetic spectrum. These waves come […]