On June 12, 1967, Venera 4 was launched into space on a mission to Venus, thus becoming the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet's atmosphere. This was a Russian probe designed to study the atmosphere of Venus down to...

On June 11, 2015, NASA astronaut Terry Virts, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency and Russian Anton Shkaplerov returned to Earth after 199 days on the International Space Station. The trio made up the...

On June 10, 1854, Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann gave his classic lecture on curved space. Riemann was a 19th century mathematician from Germany. His landmark lecture included a workable definition of how someone might measure the...

On June 9, 1952, the Abee meteorite fell in Alberta, Canada, at 11:05 at night. The space stone weighed nearly 326 pounds and was recovered from a 6 foot- deep crater in a wheat field when it was found five days later. A piece of it is...

On June 8, 1959, NASA's rocket-powered X-15 experimental plane made its first glide flight. The X-15 rocket plane was part of a series of experimental hypersonic aircraft. This flight marked the beginning of almost a decade of research...

On June 7, 1965, after a four-day mission and 62 orbits, NASA's Gemini 4 mission returned to Earth with an Atlantic Ocean splashdown. Gemini 4 was NASA's 10th manned spaceflight. It included the first spacewalk by an American astronaut....

On June 6, 1995, American astronaut Norman Thagard broke NASA's space endurance record at the time of 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes while aboard the Russian space station Mir.



Thagard, a veteran of four shuttle flights, was...

On June 5, 2002, the space shuttle Endeavour launched on the STS-111 mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station. The launch was originally scheduled for May 30th, but was delayed first by bad...

On June 4, 2010, the first Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its maiden voyage and reached orbit. Space Exploration Technologies, or Space X, was founded by billionaire Elon Musk, an internet entrepreneur...

On June 3, 1965, NASA astronaut Ed White became the first American to walk in space. White left the safety of his Gemini 4 spacecraft equipped with a spacesuit, a tether and a small gas gun for maneuvering. The spacewalk occurred just...

On June 2, 1966, NASA's Surveyor 1 landed on the lunar surface to become the first American spacecraft to land on the moon. Surveyor 1 took more than 11,000 photos of the moon along with other measurements, but, more importantly, proved...

On June 1, 2011, NASA's space shuttle Endeavor touched down safely for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after spending 299 days in space throughout the course of its 25 flights. Endeavour was built as a replacement...

On May 31, 1990, the Soviet Union launched a new module to the Mir space station. The new component was named Kristall, and it was the third addition sent to Mir since the core module launched in 1986. Including the core module, Mir...

On May 30, 1975, the European Space Agency officially opened for business. The European Space Agency was created as a merger of the European Launcher Development Organization, or ELDO, and the European Space Research Organisation, ESRO....

On May 28, 1959, two monkeys named Able and Baker became the first monkeys to go to space and make it back alive. Miss Able was a rhesus monkey from Kansas, and her crewmate Miss Baker was a squirrel monkey from Peru. They were tucked...

On May 29, 1919, a total solar eclipse helped to prove Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Einstein's theory suggested that gravity could bend light by curving the fabric of spacetime. To prove it, he thought it would be a...

On May 27, 2009, three astronauts launched to the International Space Station to complete the crew of Expedition 20. Expedition 20 was the first six-person crew to live and work at the space station for a long-duration stay. Russian...

On May 26, 1983, the European Space Agency launched its first X-ray Observatory into space. The spacecraft was called EXOSAT, which stands for European X-ray Observatory SATellite. The mission was entirely devoted to studying the...

On May 25, 2008, NASA's Phoenix lander arrived on Mars. [‘On This Day in Space’ Phoenix was NASA's sixth mission to successfully land on Mars, and it was the first mission to touch down near the planet's north pole. The objective for...

On May 24, 1962, NASA astronaut Scott Carpenter became the fourth American to go to space and the second American to orbit the Earth. Carpenter was one of NASA’s first group of astronauts known as the "Mercury Seven.” He was the backup...

On May 23, 2017, NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer took an urgent and unplanned spacewalk to replace a broken data relay box outside of the International Space Station. The problematic device, known as a...

On Oct. 18, 1963, a cat went to space! Félicette was a French "catstronaut" who became the first and only feline to fly to space. ‘On This Day in Space’ Video Series on Space.com



While the U.S. and Soviet Union were busy...

On July 13, 1969, the Soviet Union launched its Luna 15 spacecraft on a mission to the moon. Luna 15 was a robotic sample return mission sent to retrieve some lunar soil and bring it back to Earth. It launched just three days before...

On July 12, 1989, the European Space Agency launched an experimental communications satellite named Olympus-1. It was the largest civilian telecommunication satellite ever built, and some nicknamed it "LargeSat." It malfunctioned in 1991...