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    Date: 29 June 1995 Event: Space shuttle Atlantis STS-71 docked with the Soviet space station Mir.

      Date: 18 May1991 Event: Helen Sharman travelled to the Mir space station and spent a week in space.

    Date: 18 June 1983 Event: Sally Ride was launched in the space shuttle Challenger STS-7, which was the first reusable space vehicle.

  Date: 20 July 1969 Event: Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men on the Moon.

    Date: 24 December 1968 Event: Apollo 8 (followed in 1969 by Apollo missions 9 and 10) orbited the Moon but did not land.

    Date: 24 April 1967 Event: After 18 orbits in soyuz 1, Vladimir M.komarov (USSR) died when his parachute got tangled and his capsule crash-landed.

    Date: 3 June 1965 Event: Edward H. White II made a 36 minute spacewalk from Gemini 4.

    Date: 23 March 1965 Event: John Young and Virgil “Gus” Grissom made the first two-man US mission in Gemini 3.

    Date: 18 March 1965 Event: Aleskei Leonov (USSR) made the first space walk, from Voskhod 2. It took 24 minutes and it almost ended in disaster when his spacesuit ballooned. He was unable to return through the airlock until he reduced the pressure in his suit to a dangerously low level.

    Date: 16 June 1963 Event: Valentina V.Tereshkova (USSR) in Vostok 6 was the first woman in space. She spent 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes 8 seconds in space. She remains the youngest (26 years 3 months 10 days) woman in space.

    Date: 20 February 1962 Event: John H Glenn Jr in the Friendship 7 capsule made the first US orbit. completing three orbits in 4 hours 55 mins.

    Date: 6 August 1961 Event: Gherman S. Titov (USSR) in Vostok 2 made the first flight of more than 24 hours. He was also the youngest ever astronaut at 25 years 10 months 25 days.

    Date: 5 May 1961 Event: America’s first astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr, entered space aboard Mercury 3 but did not orbit during his 15 minute 22 second mission.

    Date: 12 April 1961 Event: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made a single orbit of Earth  in Vostok 1, a flight that lasted 1 hour 48 minutes

  The human exploration of the Moon lasted just over three years and involved a total of six missions. In each, a pair of US astronauts went down to the surface in a LEM (lunar excursion module) while a third orbited in a CSM (command service module). The missions provided scientist with a huge amount of information about the Moon.       Astronaut                           Spacecraft         Total EVA*         Mission                                                        ...

  Unlike space rockets, NASA’s space shuttles, or orbiter vehicles, were designed to be reused. Each has a name, but every mission on which it goes is given a unique number. The acronym STS (Space Transportation System) has been used throughout the shuttle program. The first nine flights were simply numbered STS-1 to STS-9. A more complicated system was then used, but the original system of STS + number has been revived. The do not always follow numerical order, as a mission may be delayed and a later-numbered mission may take its place before it can be rescheduled.

  During the 1950s, there was a “space race” between the USA and USSR to be the first country to send a human into space. NASA’s Mercury missions were originally unmanned, or carried only animals. The USSR launched the first man into orbit in 1961. Each country’s subsequent space missions had different aims. The USA focused on Moon landings with their Apollo program and later the re-usable space shuttle. The soviets and latter Russia concentrated on long-duration missions, with the Mir space station. The latest manned is the International Space Station, which is four times larger than Mir.

  The record for the longest-ever spacewalk was broken from 10-11 March 2001, when mission specialists James Voss and Susan Helms stepped outside space shuttle Discovery STS-102 to do construction work on the space station. Their EVA (extra vehicular activity) lasted 8 hours 56 minutes.

    The word “astronaut” was first used in 1880 by the British writer Percy Greg. It was the name he gave to a spaceship in his novel  Across the Zodiac. By the 1950s it was the word used for a space voyager. The Russian word is cosmonaut.

  No human has yet set foot on any space body rather than Earth and Moon. But unmanned spacecraft have taken photographs, made scientific readings and gathered data from all the planets in the Solar System, either by flying past or landing. Venus Mars Jupiter Mercury Saturn Uranus Neptune

  This is a system of 24 linked satellites that allows people to pinpoint their exact position anywhere on Earth. The system is operated by the US Department of Defense and is used by aircraft and ships. GPS systems are now common in cars,too.

  Governments use these “spies in the sky” for surveillance but their precise functions are secret.

  These transmit images of the weather and the Earth’s environment. They helped to show the depletion of the ozone layer.

  Over 5,000 satellites have been launched to transmit telephone, radio and television signals around the world. Fewer than half are still orbiting, and many have stopped working.

  The Hubble Space Telescope has been taking photographs of distant galaxies since 1990. In 2008 the Herschel Space Observatory is scheduled for launch. This new telescope will have the biggest mirror ever in space (3.5 m across).