Timeline of the Space Race

The Space Race was an informal competition between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975. It involved the parallel efforts by each of those countries to explore outer space with artificial satellites, to send humans into space, and to land people on the Moon. Here is a timeline of key events in the Space Race.

A chart of selected space milestones as accomplished by the Soviet Union and the United States.

Date	Significance	Country	Mission Name
August 21, 1957	Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)	USSR	R-7 Semyorka SS-6 Sapwood
October 4, 1957	First artificial satellite	USSR	Sputnik 1
November 3, 1957	First animal in orbit (Dog)	USSR	Sputnik 2
January 31, 1958	First US satellite; detection of Van Allen belts	USA-ABMA	Explorer 1
December 18, 1958	First communications satellite	USA-ABMA	Project SCORE
January 4, 1959	Artificial satellite (Sun's)	USSR	Luna 1
February 17, 1959	Weather satellite	USA-NASA (NRL)1	Vanguard 2
June 1959	Reconnaissance satellite	USA-Air Force	Discover 4
August 7, 1959	Photo of Earth from space	USA-NASA	Explorer 6
September 14, 1959	Probe to Moon	USSR	Luna 2
October 7, 1959	Photo of the far side of the Moon	USSR	Luna 3
April 12, 1961	Human in orbit	USSR	Vostok 1
July 10, 1962	First active communications satellite	USA-AT&T	Telstar
September 29, 1962	Artificial satellite by a non-superpower	Canada	Alouette 1
June 16, 1963	Woman in orbit	USSR	Vostok 6
March 18, 1965	Extra-vehicular activity	USSR	Voskhod 2
December 15, 1965	Orbital rendezvous2	USA-NASA	Gemini 6A/Gemini 7
March 1, 1966	Probe lands on another planet - Venus	USSR	Venera 3
March 16, 1966	In-orbit rendezvous and docking	USA-NASA	Gemini 8
December 24, 1968	Manned Lunar orbit	USA-NASA	Apollo 8
July 20, 1969	Human on the Moon	USA-NASA	Apollo 11
April 23, 1971	Space station	USSR	Salyut 1
November 14, 1971	Satellite orbits another planet - Mars	USA-NASA	Mariner 9
November 9, 1972	Geostationary communications satellite	Canada-BCE	Anik A1
July 15, 1975	First U.S.-USSR joint mission	USSR USA-NASA	Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

¹Project Vanguard transferred from the NRL to NASA immediately before launch.
² The Soviet Union had attempted an earlier rendezvous on August 12, 1962. However, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 only came within five kilometers of one another, and operated in different orbital planes. Pravda did not mention this information, but indicated that a rendezvous had taken place.

See also

• List of space exploration milestones, 1957-1969

References

• Timeline of the Space Race/Moon Race
• Chronology: Moon Race at russianspaceweb.com