National Air and Space Museum

Ref: National Air and Space Museum (2026). Washington, DC.

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Terminology

  • Geostationary Earth Orbit: 35,786 km from Earth. 

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Chronology

  • 2001: Sirius Radio (later Sirius XM Radio) goes online as the first generation of space-based, commercial radio (Air and Space Museum).

  • 1998: Iridium’s network of 66 satellites goes online, allowing humans to make mobile phone calls and send data from anywhere in the world (Air and Space Museum).

  • 20 Jul- Sep, 1976: NASA lands two Viking Landers on the surface of Mars with the primary mission to hunt for evidence of present or past life by searching for chemical indicators of living processes. Viking 1 worked for more than 6 years while Viking 2 transmitted data for ~3.5 years. Viking instruments found many of the building blocks of life but found no evidence that life ever existed on Mars (Air and Space Museum).

  • 16 Apr, 1972: Apollo 16 launches for the moon. After landing between North and South Ray, astronauts John Young and Charles Duke travel by rover, covering ~26.6 km and collect 96 kg of lunar rocks and soil. Meanwhile, Thomas “Ken” Mattingly continued the extensive mapping of the moon from orbit (Air and Space Museum).

  • 26 Jul, 1971: Apollo 15 launches for the moon. The 12-day mission included three Moon walks by David Scott and James Irwin and the first use of a lunar rover. Alfred Worden remained in orbit and operated a batter of science instruments contained in a new bay in the service module (Air and Space Museum).

  • 14 Nov, 1969: Apollo 12 launches for the moon. The Lunar Module Intrepid landed near Surveyor 3. Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made two moon walks lasting a total of nearly 8 hrs. They deployed the first nuclear-powered lunar surface experiment package and collected 34 kg of lunar material plus parts of Surveyor 3. Richard Gordon piloted the Yankee Clipper mothership in lunar orbit (Air and Space Museum).

  • 5 May, 1961: Alan Shepard becomes the first American to fly into space aboard the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule (Air and Space Museum).

  • 12 Apr, 1961-19 Jun, 1963: USSR’s Vostok missions successfully put Cosmonauts in space (Air and Space Museum).

    • 16-19 Jun, 1963: Vostok 6 Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova conducts 48 earth orbits in just under 3 days (Air and Space Museum).

    • 14-19 Jun, 1963: Vostok 5 Cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky conducts 81 earth orbits in just under 5 days (Air and Space Museum).

    • 12-15 Aug, 1962: Vostok 4 Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich conducts 48 earth orbits in just under 3 days (Air and Space Museum).

    • 11-15 Aug, 1961: Vostok 3 Cosmonaut Andrian Nikolaev conducts 64 earth orbits in just under 4 days (Air and Space Museum).

    • 6-7 Aug, 1961: Vostok 2 Cosmonaut German Titov conducts 17 orbits of the earth (Air and Space Museum).

    • 12 Apr, 1961: Vostok 1 Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, conducting one orbit of the Earth (Air and Space Museum).

  • Oct, 1959: The USSR’s Luna 3 records the first images of the moon’s far side (Air and Space Museum).

  • Sep, 1959: The USSR’s Luna 2 becomes the first spacecraft to succeed in crashing into the moon (Air and Space Museum).

  • 2 Jan, 1959: The USSR’s Luna 1 becomes the first human object to escape from Earth’s orbit. It failed to hit the moon but flew less than 6000 km from the lunar surface (Air and Space Museum).

  • 31 Jan, 1958: NASA’s Explorer 1 satellite is launched aboard an army missile. As the first successful US satellite, Explorer contained a cosmic ray detector, a radio transmitter, and temperature and micrometeoroid sensors. The US enters the space age (Air and Space Museum).

  • 6 Dec, 1957: The US attempts to launch its first satellite into orbit, however it fails spectacularly when its vanguard rocket explodes during liftoff (Air and Space Museum).

  • 3 Nov, 1957: The USSR sends Sputnik 2 carrying the dog Laika into orbit, to mark the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution (Air and Space Museum).

  • 4 Oct, 1957: The USSR sends Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. Sputnik contained a radio transmitter that sent back the “beep-beep-beep” heard around the world. The USSR enters the space age (Air and Space Museum).

  • Jul, 1957- Dec, 1958: The International Geophysical Year (IGY); the US and USSR commit to launch satellites as part of the IGY’s science initiative (Air and Space Museum).

  • 20-21 May, 1927: Charles Lindbergh becomes the first human to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, flying the Spirit of St. Louis from Long Island, NY to Paris (Air and Space Museum).

  • 1913: Russian engineer Igor Sikorsky produces the world’s first four-engine aircraft, the Russky Vityaz. It was designed for luxury passenger flight, complete with a saloon and bathroom. After it was destroyed in a ground accident, Sikorsky built the even more luxurious Ilya Muromets. It set a distance record of 1200 km from St. Petersburg to Kiev and back (30 Jun- 12 Jul, 1914). When WWI broke out, the Ilya Muromets became the world’s first large bomber (Air and Space Museum).

  • 1 Nov, 1911: Italian aviator Giulio Gavotti becomes the first aerial bomber after dropping bombs from an Etrich Taube monoplane on Turkish troops in Libya (Air and Space Museum).

  • 18 Jan, 1911: Curtiss aviator Eugene Ely makes the first ship-board landing on a special platform on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania (Air and Space Museum).

  • 14 Nov, 1910: Eugene Ely makes the first airplane takeoff from the deck of a ship, the USS Birmingham (Air and Space Museum).

  • 21 Nov, 1783: Brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier send the first passengers aloft in hot air balloons in France (Air and Space Museum).

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