Space Program Events

1958 Jul 29 NASA Established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act
The National Aeronautics and Space Act (Pub.L. 85-568) is the United States federal statute that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Act, which followed ...
1961
to 1975
NASA's Apollo Program
The Apollo Program was a human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA during the years 1961–1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions. In 1961, President John F. Kenne...
1963 Nov 28 President Johnson Announces Renaming of Station Number 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range and the NASA Launch Operations Center as JFK Space Center
"I have today determined that Station Number 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range and the NASA Launch Operations Center in Florida shall hereafter be known as the JFK Space Center, I have also ..." —President Johnson
1969 Nov 14
4:22PM
to 1969 Nov 24
8:58PM
 Apollo 12 Mission
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." —Pete Conrad
1971 Jan 31
to 1971 Feb 9
 Apollo 14 Mission
Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program and the third mission to land on the Moon. The nine-day mission was launched on January 31, 1971, with lunar touch down on Fe...
1975 Aug 20
9:22PM
 NASA Launches Mars Probe Viking 1
Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. It was the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars and perform its mission, and held the reco...
1977 Aug 20
2:29PM
 NASA Launches Voyager 2
The Voyager 2 spacecraft is an unmanned interplanetary space probe launched on August 20, 1977. Both the Voyager 2 and the Voyager 1 space probes were designed, developed, and built at th...
1981 Apr 12 First Orbital Space Shuttle Flight
The first launch of the Space Shuttle occurred on 12 April 1981, exactly 20 years after the first manned space flight, when the orbiter Columbia, with two crew members, astronauts John W....
1990 Aug 10 Magellen Spacecraft Arrives at Venus
The Magellan spacecraft, also referred to as the Venus Radar Mapper, was a 1,035-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on May 4, 1989, to map the surface of Venus using Synthetic ...
2009 Jun 23 The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft Approach the Moon
(CNN) -- Two NASA spacecraft closed in on the moon Tuesday morning -- one to send streaming video to Earth as it swings past the moon, the other to map the lunar surface from orbit, the s...
2009 Sep 24 Water Discovered on the Moon's Surface
Samples of lunar rocks brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts had never shown any signs of water, leading scientists to presume that the moon was bone dry, except for possible pockets...
2012 Aug 25 Neil Armstrong, First Man on Moon, Dies
Armstrong, who had just turned 82, underwent surgery on August 7, 2012, to relieve blocked coronary arteries. He died on August 25, 2012, at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio, from complicatio...