Learn about NASA's first class of astronauts announced in 1959, and their pioneering missions to space.

NASA's second human spaceflight program, Project Gemini missions spanned the years from 1961 to 1966, paving the way for landing humans on the Moon.

NASA astronauts made humanity's first crewed lunar landing in July 1969 for Apollo 11 and made five more Moon landings over the next three years.

Launched in 1973, America's first space station was visited by three crews and made leaps in space science.

On July 15, 1975, an Apollo spacecraft launched carrying a crew of three and docked two days later with a Soyuz spacecraft and its crew of two.

From 1981 to 2011, 135 missions with the reusable shuttle vehicles were carried out to perform research and deliver crew and cargo to and from low-Earth orbit.

From early 1994 into 1998, the Shuttle-Mir Program prepared the way for the International Space Station and began an era of cooperation and exploration, rarely seen in human history.

On December 6, 1998, the crew of space shuttle mission STS-88 began attached the U.S.-built Unity node and the Russian-built Zarya module together in orbit. Learn more about the beginnings of this 25-year international venture.

NASA's first successful mission to reach the Moon was launched on July 28, 1964, returning 4,316 images of the Moon on July 31st.

Since 1972, the Landsat Program has provided the longest continuous space-based record of Earth's land.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 brought us our first close-up views of the outer planets of our solar system and continue their missions today in interstellar space!

The Red Planet's first rover, Sojourner, landed on the planet's surface, along with the Pathfinder lander on July 4, 1997.

Over its nearly 20 years in space from 1997 to 2017, the Cassini spacecraft gathered data on Saturn and its moons in unprecedented detail.

From 2007 to 2018, Dawn became the first spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial destinations, Vesta and Ceres, both in our solar system's main asteroid belt.

Launched into Earth orbit in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been visited by astronauts four times to make repairs and install new instruments.

Known as "The Mother of Hubble," Nancy Grace Roman was NASA's first chief astronomer.

On June 1, 1973, astronomers around the world were introduced to a powerful and perplexing new phenomenon called gamma ray bursts (GRBs).

Learn about the wide variety of experimental aircraft flown over the decades at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.

Read Robert G. Ferguson's book outlining the aeronautics research work NASA has undertaken.

Between 1959 and 1968, the X-15 rocket research aircraft broke speed and altitude records for piloted aircraft.

Learn about the history of the first aircraft documented to exceed the speed of sound.

Resources, biographies, and further reading on the world's first satellite, launched in October 1957.

Read the story of Explorer 1, America's first satellite to be put in orbit.

Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard is considered the father of modern rocket propulsion. A physicist of great insight, Goddard also had a unique genius for invention.

Boris Chertok's first hand account of the Soviet space program from its beginning through 1974 is presented in a 4-volume series of books.

What do solar sails, a deep space atomic clock, and human exploration telerobotics have in common? These are a few of the projects NASA has tested to advance space exploration technology!