Missions
37 articles
Apollo 10In May 1969, Apollo 10 was the dress rehearsal for the Moon landing. The crew of Stafford, Young and Cernan flew the Lunar Module to within 15 km of the lunar surface — doing everything except the landing itself.open article →
Apollo 11The first crewed landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed in the Sea of Tranquility while Michael Collins waited in orbit.open article →
Apollo 12In November 1969, Apollo 12 was the second crewed landing on the Moon. The crew of Conrad, Gordon and Bean touched down within tens of metres of the Surveyor 3 probe and brought parts of it back to Earth.open article →
Apollo 13Third crewed Apollo Moon-landing attempt, aborted after an in-flight oxygen tank explosion; all three astronauts returned safely after a six-day mission.open article →
Apollo 14In January and February 1971, Apollo 14 resumed crewed Moon landings after the Apollo 13 accident. Commander Alan Shepard, the first American in space, became at the age of 47 the oldest person ever to stand on the Moon — and famously hit golf balls there.open article →
Apollo 15In July 1971, Apollo 15 was the first mission to carry a lunar rover. The crew of Scott, Worden and Irwin spent three days at the foot of the Apennine Mountains and brought back over 77 kg of rocks, including the famous “Genesis Rock”.open article →
Apollo 16In April 1972, Apollo 16 made the first landing in the lunar highlands — in the Descartes region. The crew of Young, Mattingly and Duke explored the plateau by rover, a region scientists had wrongly believed to be volcanic.open article →
Apollo 17NASA's final Apollo Moon landing. Cernan and Schmitt explored Taurus-Littrow for three days while Evans orbited alone; the mission returned the largest sample haul of the program.open article →
Apollo 7In October 1968, Apollo 7 was the first crewed flight of the Apollo program. The crew of Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham checked out the Command and Service Module in Earth orbit and made the first live television broadcasts from an American spacecraft.open article →
Apollo 8In December 1968, Apollo 8 became the first crewed mission to leave Earth orbit and fly around the Moon. On Christmas Eve the crew of Borman, Lovell and Anders read a passage from Genesis from lunar orbit and took the famous Earthrise photograph.open article →
Apollo 9In March 1969, Apollo 9 gave the Lunar Module its first crewed test — in the safety of Earth orbit. The crew of McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart rehearsed the rendezvous and docking of the two spacecraft, essential for the later landing on the Moon.open article →
Apollo–SoyuzApollo–Soyuz (ASTP) was the first joint Soviet–American crewed flight, on 15–24 July 1975. The American Apollo docked with the Soviet Soyuz 19 and Tom Stafford shook hands with Alexei Leonov — the first international docking and a symbolic end to the space race.open article →
Artemis IArtemis I was the first integrated test of the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft and ground systems for returning humans to the Moon. Uncrewed, it looped around the Moon and safely returned to Earth.open article →
Cassini–HuygensThe Cassini–Huygens mission spent thirteen years at Saturn, revealing a dynamic ring system, methane lakes on Titan and active plumes from Enceladus.open article →
Crew Dragon Demo-1Uncrewed end-to-end orbital demonstration of Crew Dragon, including autonomous docking with the International Space Station and recovery in the Atlantic Ocean.open article →
Crew Dragon Demo-2První pilotovaný let Crew Dragonu k ISS a závěrečná end-to-end zkouška před certifikací systému.open article →
CuriosityNASA’s Curiosity rover has been studying Gale Crater on Mars since 2012, reconstructing the planet’s ancient environments and habitability.open article →
Falcon Heavy Demonstration MissionPrvní demonstrační let Falconu Heavy; oba postranní stupně úspěšně přistály, zatímco centrální stupeň se při přistávacím zážehu nepodařilo zachránit.open article →
Freedom 7On 5 May 1961, Freedom 7 carried Alan Shepard on a fifteen-minute suborbital flight — the first spaceflight by an American, three weeks after Gagarin. The Mercury capsule reached an altitude of 187 km and splashed down in the Atlantic.open article →
Friendship 7On 20 February 1962, Friendship 7 carried John Glenn around Earth three times — the first orbital flight by an American. The mission lasted just under five hours and made Glenn a national hero.open article →
Gemini 4In June 1965, Gemini 4 brought the first American spacewalk — Ed White spent 23 minutes outside the spacecraft. The four-day flight with James McDivitt was also the longest American spaceflight up to that time.open article →
Gemini 5The third crewed Gemini flight tested eight-day endurance, rendezvous procedures and systems required for later lunar missions.open article →
Gemini 8In March 1966, Gemini 8 achieved the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit. Moments after docking, however, the craft carrying Neil Armstrong and David Scott began to spin uncontrollably — the mission was saved by the commander’s cool-headed emergency response.open article →
International Space Station (ISS)A continuously operated international station in low Earth orbit, under construction since 1998 and continuously inhabited since November 2000.open article →
Mariner 9NASA’s Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, mapping Mars and transforming our view of its volcanic and canyon landscapes.open article →
STS-1The first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle system. In April 1981 Columbia, crewed by John Young and Robert Crippen, tested shuttle launch, orbital operations and runway landing for the first time.open article →
STS-135The final Space Shuttle mission. In July 2011 Atlantis delivered supplies and spare parts to the ISS, closing the shuttle’s thirty-year era.open article →
STS-31The Space Shuttle Discovery mission that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope in April 1990.open article →
STS-51-LSTS-51-L was the twenty-fifth mission of the Space Shuttle program. On 28 January 1986, 73 seconds after launch, the orbiter Challenger broke apart when a frost-embrittled O-ring in its right solid rocket booster failed — the entire seven-member crew died, including teacher Christa McAuliffe.open article →
Soyuz T-10-1A launch to the Salyut 7 station aborted by a fire on the pad less than two minutes before the planned liftoff. The crew was saved by the SAS escape system; the rocket was destroyed in the explosion.coming soon
Sputnik 1The first artificial satellite of Earth. Launched on 4 October 1957, it remained in orbit for 92 days.coming soon
Starship Flight 12The first flight of Starship and Super Heavy Block 3. The ship performed nominally, deploying satellite simulators and splashing down under control, but the booster was lost after a failed boostback burn.open article →
Viking 1Viking 1 was the first successful U.S. mission to land and operate on Mars, combining a long-lived orbiter with a pioneering surface laboratory.open article →
Voskhod 2On 18 March 1965 Voskhod 2 delivered the first human spacewalk: Alexei Leonov spent 12 minutes and 9 seconds outside the spacecraft. The return nearly ended in tragedy — a ballooned spacesuit, an automatic-system failure and an emergency landing in snowbound taiga hundreds of kilometres off target.open article →
Vostok 1The first crewed spaceflight in history. Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in 108 minutes and landed safely near Engels.open article →
Vostok 6Vostok 6 carried Valentina Tereshkova into orbit on 16 June 1963 — the first woman in space. In under three days she orbited the Earth forty-eight times and landed on 19 June near Barnaul. It was the final flight of the Vostok program.open article →
Voyager 1Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made spacecraft, a long-lived NASA probe that transformed our view of the outer planets and continues exploring interstellar space.open article →