The first country on Earth to put any technology into space was the
Soviet Union. The Soviet Union sent the
Sputnik 1 satellite on October 4, 1957. It weighed about , and is believed to have orbited around the globe. Analysis of the radio signals was used to gather information about the electron density of the
ionosphere, while temperature and pressure data was encoded in the duration of radio beeps. The first successful human spaceflight was
Vostok 1, carrying 27-year-old Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin in April 1961. The entire mission was controlled by either automatic systems or by
ground control. This was because medical staff and spacecraft engineers were unsure how a human might react to weightlessness, and therefore it was decided to lock the pilot's manual controls. The first probe to impact the surface of the Moon was the Soviet probe
Luna 2, which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959. The far side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959, by the Soviet probe
Luna 3.s On December 24, 1968, the crew of
Apollo 8,
Frank Borman,
James Lovell and
William Anders, became the first human beings to enter lunar orbit and see the far side of the Moon in person. Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first human to walk on the lunar surface was
Neil Armstrong, commander of
Apollo 11. The first space probe to land on moon South Pole of India.
Chandrayaan-3 was launched aboard an LVM3-M4 rocket on 14 July 2023, at 09:05 UTC from Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India, entering an Earth parking orbit with a perigee of 170 km (106 mi) and an apogee of 36,500 km (22,680 mi). Apollo 11 was followed by
Apollo 12,
14,
15,
16, and
17.
Apollo 13 had a failure of the
Apollo service module, but passed the
far side of the Moon at an altitude of above the lunar surface, and 400,171 km (248,655 mi) from Earth, marking the
record for the farthest humans traveled from Earth in 1970. The first robotic
lunar rover to land on the Moon was the Soviet vessel
Lunokhod 1 on November 17, 1970, as part of the
Lunokhod program. To date, the last human to stand on the Moon was
Eugene Cernan, who, as part of the
Apollo 17 mission, walked on the Moon in December 1972. Apollo 17 was followed by several uncrewed interplanetary missions operated by NASA. Also Technological innovations in space exploration have important effects on the economy, society, and the environment. Economically, new safety features and technology have made space missions cheaper. Using reusable rockets helps companies save money because they do not need to fix or replace rockets as often. This makes space exploration more affordable and encourages more people to invest in the space industry. Socially, these new technologies have created many jobs in areas like engineering, research, and aerospace manufacturing. The growth of the space industry also helps other industries, such as telecommunications and materials engineering, by creating new job opportunities. Environmentally, using reusable rockets helps reduce space debris. By reusing rockets, space agencies can produce less waste and lessen the impact of space missions on the environment. This approach supports cleaner space exploration and a more sustainable future. In summary, technological advances in space exploration positively affect the economy, create jobs, and promote environmental sustainability, helping the field continue to grow. One of the notable interplanetary missions is
Voyager 1, the first artificial object to
leave the Solar System into
interstellar space on August 25, 2012. It is also the most distant artificial object from Earth. The probe passed the
heliopause at 121
AU to enter
interstellar space.
Voyager 1 is currently at a distance of (21.708 billion kilometers; 13.489 billion miles) from Earth as of January 1, 2019. == Hazards caused by space technology ==