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1942-1975

Date	First Success	Country	Mission Name
1944	Rocket to reach 100km from the earths crust (boundary to space)	Nazi Germany	V2 rocket, military program
July 1946	Animals in space (fruit flies)	USA-ABMA	V2
October 10, 1946	First pictures of earth from 100 km	USA at WSMR	V2
August 21, 1957	Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)	USSR	R-7 Semyorka/SS-6 Sapwood
October 4, 1957	Artificial satellite Signals from space	USSR	Sputnik 1
November 3, 1957	First animal in orbit, the dog Laika	USSR	Sputnik 2
January 31, 1958	Detection of Van Allen belts	USA-ABMA	Explorer I
December 18, 1958	Communications satellite	USA-ABMA	Project SCORE
January 2, 1959	Firing of a rocket in Earth orbit Reaching escape velocity Detection of solar wind	USSR	Luna 1
January 4, 1959	Orbit around the Sun	USSR	Luna 1
February 17, 1959	Weather satellite	USA-NASA (NRL)	Vanguard 2
August 7, 1959	Photo of Earth from space	USA-NASA	Explorer 6
September 13, 1959	Landing on another world (the Moon)	USSR	Luna 2
October 4, 1959	Photos of far side of the Moon	USSR	Luna 3
July 5, 1960	Reconnaissance satellite	USA-NRL	GRAB-1
August 18, 1960	photo Reconnaissance satellite	USA-Air Force	KH-1 9009
1961	Launch from orbit Mid-course corrections Spin-stabilisation Venus fly-by	USSR	Venera 1
April 12, 1961	Human in space Human in orbit	USSR	Vostok 1
November 1, 1962	Mars flyby	USSR	Mars 1
June 16, 1963	Woman in space	USSR	Vostok 6
July 19, 1963	Reusable Manned Spacecraft (suborbital)	USA-NASA	X-15 Flight 90
October 12, 1964	Multi-man crew (3)	USSR	Voskhod 1
March 18, 1965	Extra-vehicular activity	USSR	Voskhod 2
April 6, 1965	Commercial communications satellite	Intelsat	Intelsat 1
December 15, 1965	Orbital rendezvous (parallel flight, no docking)	USA-NASA	Gemini 6A/Gemini 7
February 3, 1966	Soft landing on another world (the Moon) Photos from another world	USSR	Luna 9
March 1, 1966	Landing on another planet (Venus)	USSR	Venera 3
April 3, 1966	Artificial satellite around another world (the Moon)	USSR	Luna 10
April 23, 1967	Spaceflight casualty	USSR	Soyuz 1
October 30, 1967	Unmanned rendezvous with docking	USSR	Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188
January 16, 1969	Manned docking and exchange of crew	USSR	Soyuz 4/Soyuz 5
July 21, 1969	Human on the Moon	USA-NASA	Apollo 11
September 24, 1970	Automatic sample return from the Moon	USSR	Luna 16
November 23, 1970	Lunar rover	USSR	Lunokhod 1
December 15, 1970	Soft landing on another planet (Venus) Signals from another planet	USSR	Venera 7
April 23, 1971	Space station	USSR	Salyut 1
December 1971	Orbit around Mars	USSR	Mars 2
November 27, 1971	Mars landing	USSR	Mars 2
December 2, 1971	Soft Mars landing signals from Mars surface	USSR	Mars 2
July 15, 1975	Multinational manned mission	USSR USA-NASA	Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
October 20, 1975	Orbit around another planet (Venus)	USSR	Venera 9
October 22, 1975	Photos from the surface of another planet (Venus)	USSR	Venera 9

Project Vanguard was transferred from the NRL to NASA immediately before launch.

Post-1975

Date	First Success	Country	Mission Name
March 2 1978	Non-American and non-Soviet in space	USSR Czechoslovakia	Soyuz 28
April 12 1981	Reusable manned spacecraft (orbital)	USA-NASA	Columbia
March 1 1982	Venus soil samples & sound recording of another world	USSR	Venera 13
June 13 1983	Spacecraft beyond the orbit of Neptune	USA-NASA	Pioneer 10
July 25 1984	Extra-vehicular activity by a woman	USSR	Salyut 7
December 2 1990	Commercial manned-spaceflight	USSR Japan	Soyuz TM-11
July 7 1998	Submarine-launched spacecraft	Russia	K-407
April 28 2001	Space tourist	Russia USA	Soyuz TM-32
October 15 2003	Third nation to achieve manned spaceflight	China	Shenzhou 5
June 21 2004	Private human spaceflight / spacecraft (suborbital)	USA-MAV	SpaceShipOne 15P

In addition, virtually all manned duration records have been set by the USSR, due largely to their Salyut/Mir series of space stations.

• Space exploration