1957–1959
| Date | Country | Event | Spacecraft / Mission |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 Oct 4 | USSR | First Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. |
Sputnik 1
|
| 1957 Nov 3 | USSR | First mammal (the dog Laika) in orbit around Earth. | Sputnik 2 |
| 1958 Jan 31 | USA | First satellite for discovering the Van Allen radiation belt. | Explorer 1 |
| 1958 Mar 17 | USA | First solar-powered satellite. | Vanguard 1 |
| 1959 Jan 2 | USSR | First spacecraft to pass near the Moon. | Luna 1 |
| 1959 Mar 3 | USA | First American probe to fly by the Moon. | Pioneer 4 |
| 1959 Feb 28 | USA | First satellite in a polar orbit. | Discoverer 1 |
| 1959 May 28 | USA | First primates to be recovered from a spaceflight. | ABLE & BAKER |
| 1959 Aug 7 | USA | First photograph of Earth from orbit. | Explorer 6
|
| 1959 Sep 14 | USSR | First spacecraft to impact the Moon. | Luna 2 |
| 1959 Oct 7 | USSR | First photos of far side of the Moon. | Luna 3 |
1960–1969
| Date | Country | Event | Spacecraft / Mission |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 Aug 11 | USA | First satellite recovered intact from orbit. | Discoverer 13 |
| 1960 Aug 18 | USA | First aerial recovery of an object (the film) returning from Earth orbit. | Discoverer 14 |
| 1960 Aug 19 | USSR | First animals and plants returned alive from space, first capsule recovered from orbit (Belka and Strelka). | Korabl-Sputnik 2 |
| 1961 Jan 31 | USA | First great ape (HAM the Chimp) launched into space. | HAM |
| 1961 Apr 12 | USSR | First human orbital spaceflight (Yuri Gagarin). | Vostok 1 |
| 1961 May 5 | USA | First American in space (suborbital flight), first pilot-controlled space flight (Alan Shepard). | Freedom 7 |
| 1961 May 25 | USA | President Kennedy pledged to support the American space program. | Kennedy National Goal |
| 1961 Aug 6 | USSR | First human orbital spaceflight lasting a full day (Gherman Titov). | Vostok 2 |
| 1962 Feb 20 | USA | First American orbital space (John Glenn). | Friendship 7 |
| 1962 Aug 12 | USSR | First dual spaceflights (Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich). | Vostok 3/ Vostok 4  |
| 1963 Jun 16 | USSR | First woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova). | Vostok 6 |
| 1964 Jul 28 | USA | First US space probe to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit close images of the lunar surface before impact. | Ranger 7 |
| 1964 Oct 12 | USSR | First spaceflight that carry more than one crewman (Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov). | Voskhod 1 |
| 1965 Mar 18 | USSR | First "space walk" (Alexei Leonov). | Voskhod 2 |
| 1965 Mar 23 | USA | First time two American astronauts flew together into space, first piloted spacecraft orbit change (Gus Grissom and John Young). | Gemini 3 |
| 1965 June 3 | USA | First space walk by an American, first American flight to perform scientific experiments in space (James McDivitt and Edward White). | Gemini 4 |
| 1965 Dec 15 | USA | First orbital rendezvous (Walter Schirra, Thomas Stafford, Frank Borman and James Lovell). | Gemini 6A Gemini 7 
|
| 1966 Feb 3 | USSR | First soft landing on the Moon and took the first pictures from the lunar surface. | Luna 9 |
| 1966 Mar 16 | USA | First spacecraft docking (Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott). | Gemini 8 |
| 1966 Apr 3 | USSR | First artificial satellite to orbit the Moon. | Luna 10 |
| 1966 May 30 | USA | First US spacecraft to perform a controlled landing on the surface of the moon. | Surveyor 1 |
| 1966 Aug 10 | USA | First photographs of the Moon's surface from lunar orbit, first image of Earth taken from the Moon. | Lunar Orbiter 1  |
| 1966 Sep 12 | USA | First direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous. | Gemini 11 |
| 1967 Oct 30 | USSR | First docking of two remote-controlled spacecraft. | Kosmos 186/ Kosmos 188  |
| 1968 Sep 14 | USSR | First life forms to circle the Moon and return to Earth. | Zond 5 |
| 1968 Oct 11 | USA | First three-person American crew to launch into space, first live TV broadcast from space occurred during the mission (Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele). | Apollo 7 |
| 1968 Dec 21 | USA | First human spaceflight to orbit the Moon. | Apollo 8 |
| 1969 Jan 16 | USSR | First docking of two manned spacecrafts and crew exchange in space. | Soyuz 4/ Soyuz 5 
|
| 1969 Jul 20 | USA | First humans landed on the Moon. | Apollo 11 |
| 1969 Nov 19 | USA | First targeted landing on the Moon (Surveyor 3 site). | Apollo 12 |
1970–1975
| Date | Country | Event | Spacecraft / Mission |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 Sep 24 | USSR | First robotic probe to return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. | Luna 16 |
| 1970 Nov 23 | USSR | First remote-controlled lunar rover on the Moon. | Lunokhod 1 |
| 1971 Jun 29 | USSR | First human-crewed orbital observatory (Orion 1). | Soyuz 11 |
| 1971 Jul 31 | USA | First human-driven lunar rover. | Apollo 15 |
| 1975 Jul 15 | USA & USSR |
First multinational human-crewed mission. |
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Soyuz 19 
|
