By Khushi thakur JULY 19, 2024
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The first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon was Apollo 11, got launched on top of the Saturn V, the most potent rocket ever built. It carried two astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon. Apollo 11 was launched on July 16, 1969.
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Alan Shepard was the first American astronaut to orbit the planet; he departed on May 5, 1961. He was not the first person in space; that honour goes to Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut. However, Shepard marked NASA's debut in the history of human spaceflight.
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The Voyager program's original purpose of studying Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune was expanded to include studying the edge of the Solar System—the barrier into interstellar space—which the probes are currently entering.
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The Hubble Space Telescope's mission turned out to be one of the most significant scientific achievements in history. Dedicated to the memory of astronomer Edwin Hubble, this telescope has examined over 40,000 distinct space objects and produced over 1.5 million astronomical observations.
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Launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 were the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter and Saturn, the solar system's most spectacular gas giants. The first spacecraft to fly through the asteroid belt—a region of rocks around Mars and Jupiter —was Pioneer 10.
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These sturdy Mars rovers, designed to last up to 90 days, have exceeded expectations and have been operating on the planet for more than five years. The twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, touched down in January 2004 on different sides of the planet.
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Launched in 1997, this joint NASA/ESA spacecraft arrived at its target, Saturn, in 2004. It has been in orbit around the ringed planet ever since, capturing breathtaking images of the planet's rings, moon, and weather.
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By conducting the first thorough exploration of the Pluto system and delving further into the enigmatic and far-off Kuiper Belt, a remnant of the solar system's origin, the New Horizons mission is assisting astrobiologists in their understanding of worlds at the periphery of our solar system.