1957 - First Earth orbiter, Soviet Sputnik 1, 370 mile high orbit, 184-lb.
- October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world by placing the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. The Russian spacecraft orbited around the earth in great, amorphous loops. Americans reacted to the Russian Sputnik with amazement and awe.  Many doubted that it was really in space, some top minds reported it as unimportant and useless. Some saw it as an object to blown out of the sky, in truth it was nothing more than a dummy space ship.
- Sputnik 2 was launched on November 3 with the dog, Laika, the first animal in space
- Unsuccessful Vanguard firing in the USA
1958 - First successful American satellite: USAF 31-lb Explorer First successful Vanguard launching
- Discovery of the Van Allen Zone Tests with Pioneer rockets (pre- lunar probes)
- US Congress Space Act Established - NASA (National Aeronautical Space Agency)
1959 - Russians launch Luna 1 (first probe to go near the Moon)
- 358-lb. Soviet Luna 2 made first crash-landing on the Moon
- Far side of the Moon photographed with the probe 614 - lb. Soviet Luna 3
1960      - First television weather satellite Tiros 1
- First communications satellite 124-lb. Echo 1
- Two dogs (Strelka and Belka) in Sputnik 5 became the first animals to be successfully returned to Earth in August
1961 - First Venus probe launched by the Russians Venera 1, but contact soon lost
- First manned space-flight by Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin for 60 min in Vostok 1, USSR
- Gherman Titov spends more than a day in space (25 hours) in the second Vostok manned flight in August
- First   manned American space-flight by astronaut Shepard, sub-orbital
1962 - First American orbital flight by NASA, John Glenn for 5-hrs in Mercury 6
- First British-built satellite (Ariel) launched from the USA
- NASA 730 - lb. Ranger 4 got TV close-up pictures of the Moon
- Transatlantic television programs relayed by the 171 - lb. Telstar satellite
- First active geodetic satellite (Anna 1 B)
- Russians launch the first Mars probe, but contact lost
- Venus probe Mariner 2 sends back close-range information about Venus
1963 - First maneuverable satellite (Polyot 1, USSR)
- NASA 80 - lb. Syncom II, geosynchronous communications satellite
- Two spacecraft in orbit at the same time (Nikolayev and Popovich, USSR)
- First space-woman (Valentina Tereshkova-Nikolayeva, USSR)
- September 1, the first operational A-4, named the V2, is launched against London, the first of over a thousand to be launched
- Arthur C Clarke proposes the concept of the geo-stationary orbit for global , communications in an article in the October issue of Wireless World
- On 5 May, Peenemunde is captured by the Red Army but most facilities have ready been destroyed by the personnel on Braun and Dornberger. Objects were relocated to White Sands Proving Ground 1, New Mexico under 'Operation paperclip'
  When the war was over, a team of one hundred twenty German rocket scientists, headed by Dr Wernher von Braun, was brought to the United States under a project code-named Operation Paperclip.  Three-hundred train carloads of V-2's were dismantled and shipped to America for test launching.  In 1949, a V-2 rocket with solid upper stages launched a payload to the unprecedented altitude of 250 miles. At its apex of flight it had no velocity and fell back to earth
1964 - ESRO established in Europe with 10 member nations
- Close-range photographs of the Moon obtained from 806-lb Ranger 7 before impact (USA)
- NASA 830-lb Nimbus 1 in polar orbit got complete world cloud cover each day
- NASA 575-lb Mariner 4  got TV pictures of Mars on 6100-mi fly-by
- First three-crew space-craft in Voskhod 1, USSR
1965 - First 'space-walk' by Cosmonaut Leonov, USSR
- First American 'space-walk' by astronaut White
- NASA launched first commercial communications satellite, 87-lb Intelsat 1, in geosynchronous orbit over 27' W longitude
- First cosmic-ray measurements outside the atmosphere by Soviet 25,000-lb Proton 1 I
- First impact on Venus' surface by Soviet 2ioo-11)Venera 3-
- Close-range photographs of Mars obtained from Mariner 4 (USA)
- Improved photographs of the Moon's far side obtained from Zond 3 (USSR)
- Successful space-docking operation (Gemini 6 and 7, USA)
1966 - First soft landing on the Moon, by Luna 9 (USSR)
- Russian probe Venus 3 lands on Venus, though contact had been lost
- First circum-lunar probe, 3600-lb Lunar 10 (USSR)
- First American soft-landing on the Moon (Surveyor 1) Improved close-range photographs of the Moon from  846-lb Orbiter 1 NASA
1967  - Disaster at Cape Kennedy, resulting in the deaths of three astronauts
- Death of Colonel Komarov in Soyuz 1 due to parachute failure
- First soft-landing on Venus by  (USSR)
- First chemical analysis of lunar soil by NASA 619-lb Surveyor 5
1968 - Testing of the American Saturn 5 rocket (Project Apollo)
- First recovery of circum-lunar probe, Zond 5 which had animals aboard, (USSR)
- First manned Apollo flight: Apollo 7 (Schirra, Cunningham, Eisele)
- First flight round the Moon: Apollo 8 (Borman, Lovell, Anders)
- NASA OAO 2 orbiting astronomical observatory (4436-lb)
1969 - First Russian manned docking maneuver (Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5)
- First space testing of the Lunar Module: Apollo 9 (McDivitt, Scott, Schweickart)
- Further soft-landings of unmanned probes on Venus: Venus 5 and Venus 6 (USSR)(Stafford, Cernan, Young)
- July 21 First men on the moon in Apollo 11 (Armstrong and Aldrin: Collins in orbit) returning 48-lbs of lunar samples from Mare Tranquillitatis
- Further probes sent past Mars: Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 (USA)
1970 - First Japanese Earth orbiter, 58-lb Lambda
- First Chinese Earth orbiter (386-lbs)
- Soviet unmanned Luna  returned 3-5 oz of lunar soil after soft landing in Mare Fecunditatis
- First unmanned lunar vehicle, Lunokhod 1, soft-landed by Soviet Luna 17 for ii-months' operation in Mare Imbrium
- X-ray survey of the sky started by NASA-Italian 320-lb Explorer 42 (Uhuru-)
- France launched Earth orbiter
1971 - Soviets launched Mars 2 and 3 for first impact on Mars the planet by Mars 2 and first soft landing on Dec 2, 1971 by Mars 3
- NASA launched 2271-lb Mariner 9, first orbiter of Mars, which telemeter high-resolution TV pictures of the surface
- First space lab, Soviet 41,580-lb. Salyut 1, visited for 22 days by Cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Patsayev, and Volkov, who died in Soyuz on return to Earth
- First manned Lunar Rover used by Astronauts Scott and Irwin on Apollo-15 mission near Hadley Rille
-  First sub-satellite launched from CSM by Astronaut Worden
1972 - NASA launched Pioneer 10 for first Jupiter fly-by in December 1973
- First astronomical telescope on the Moon with NASA Apollo i6 and Astronauts Young and Duke
- First color-image of Earth from NASA 1800lb ERTS i
- 32-in telescope in Earth orbit Oil 4850-lb OAO 3 (Copernicus)
- Last manned landing on Moon by Astronauts Cernan and Schmitt in NASA Apollo 17; 250-lbs of lunar samples returned from Taurus-Littrow
1973 - NASA 190,000-lb Skylab in Earth orbit made many astronomical observations and engineering experiments performed by three crews in visits as long as 85 days
- Soviet Union launched Mars 4, 5, and 6, of which Mars 5 soft landed in March 1974
- NASA iio8-lb Mariner 10 launched for Venus and Mercury fly-bys
1974 - German Helios 1 launched by NASA to orbit sun at 0-3 AU
1975 - Soviet Union launched Venera 9 and 10 to orbit Venus; Venera-9 lander reached the surface October 22 and transmitted the first pictures from another planet's surface
- NASA Apollo docked with Soviet Soyuz in joint ASTP mission
- NASA launched 7500-lb Vikings 1 and 2 to visit Mars in July 1976 with 2293-lb landers to make first analysis of Martian soil
1980  - NASA Space Shuttle to be used repeatedly
- Solar maximum mission satellite (Solar Max) launched on 14 February but fails 1 month  later. It featured the first in-orbit satellite repair mass on the space shuttle mission  April 1984
- Voyager I reaches Saturn and flies within 78,000 miles (126,000 km) of its cloud tops.  It sent back spectacular pictures of the rings and discovered many new moons. The first of the powerful Intelsat V communications satellites, with 12,000 volt circuits, is launched on 6-December. The first operational orbiter Columbia is rolled out to the launch pad on 29 December, looking to a launch in the following spring
1981 - John Young and Robert Crippen flew Columbia into orbit on 12-April on the space shuttle's maiden mission (STS- 1).  It lasted for 36 orbits, 54 hours, launched from the Kennedy Space Center, it returned to the Edwards Air Force Base in California, on 14-April. On 25-August Voyager 1 makes its closest approach, 63,000 miles (IO 1,000 km), to Saturn
- Columbia, on the second shuttle mission (STS-2),went into space again for a 36-orbit flight on 12-November, piloted by Joe Engle and Richard Truly.  It was the first time any spacecraft has returned to space for a second time.  The crew tested the remote manipulator system robot arm.
1982 - Columbia makes its third flight (STS-3) on 22-March, crewed by Jack Lousma and Gordon Fullerton  landed at White Sands, New Mexico, after an 8-day flight. STS-4 began on 27-June, with Thomas Mattingly and Henry Hartsfleld flying Columbia on a 7-day mission, the final test mission.
1983 -Columbia becomes operational on STS-5, lifting off in November. It carries a record four-man crew, Vance Brand, Robert Overmyer, Joseph Allen and William Lenoir. They launched two communication satellites.
-International infrared astronomy satellite IRAS launched on 25-January,  discovered comets, possible new solar systems.
-Challenger, on STS-6, takes place on 4-April, with a crew of four, Paul Weitz, Karol Bobko, Donald Petersen and Story Musgrave.  During a 5-day flight the crew deployed the first tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS), and Petersen and Musgrave tested the new shuttle spacesuit in the orbiter cargo bay.
-European X-ray satellite Exosat launched on 26-May.
-First American woman astronaut Sally Ride soars into orbit on Challenger's second flight       (STS-7) on 24-June, along with Robert Crippen, Frederick Hauck, John Fabian and Norman Thagard, making a record five-person crew.
-On 13-June Pioneer 10 becomes the first probe to venture into interstellar space when it crossed the orbit of the outermost planet, Neptune
- On 30-August STS-8 launched, the crew of Challenger included Richard Truly, Daniel Brandenstein, Dale Gardner, Guion Bluford, William Thornton, and six rats
- The first flight of Space-lab on the shuttle begins on 28-November. The space shuttle is Columbia, with a crew of six conducted over 70 experiments on a 10-day flight.  Among them is a German scientist, the first non-American to fly in the US space program.  The other crew members are John Young, Brewster Shaw, Robert Parker, Owen Garriott and Byron Lichtenberg
1984 - First human to orbit Earth and become first human satellite, Bruce McCandless (U.S.A.)
1985 - First probe to reach a comet (USA)
1986 - First probe to reach Uranus (USA)
1987 - First permanently-occupied space station, Space Station MIR (USSR)
1988 -Longest manned space-flight - 365 days by cosmonauts Titov and Manarov (USSR)
1989 -First probe to reach Neptune - Voyager 2 (USA)