10 key moments in space exploration

As astronaut Scott Kelly sets the record for the longest US spaceflight, ITV News looks back at ten key moments in space exploration.

  • Laika the dog

Laika dog went to space, and likely died within hours.

November 1957: Laika has the dubious honour of becoming one of the first animals in space, but sadly never returned from her mission, overheating and dying hours into her spaceflight.

In 2008, Russia erected a statue to commemorate Laika in Moscow.

  • Yuri Gagarin kicks off the Space Race

Yuri Gagarin getting ready to become the first man to orbit the Earth in 1961 Credit: PA Images

12 April, 1961: Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave Earth. He orbited the planet once in the Vostock 1 capsule during his 108-minute flight.

His flight was the first major victory in the Space Race between The Soviet Union and the United States.

  • The first woman in space

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, stands in front of Vostok-6, the capsule that she piloted into space, Credit: PA

16 June, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova stayed in space for almost three days and completed 48 orbits of Earth and became the first woman in space.

It would be another twenty years before the first American woman, Sally Ride, went to space - on board the Challenger space shuttle in 1983.

  • Apollo 8 circles the moon

One of the 'blue marble' photos from the Apollo 8 flight. Credit: Nasa

December 1968: The three men of Apollo 8 orbited the Moon - the furthest from Earth humans had ever been.

On Christmas Eve, the crew beamed back a picture of Earth hanging in space framed by a desolate moonscape.

  • Man lands on the moon

File photo of Neil Armstrong walking in Sea of Tranquility Credit: Nasa

20 July 1969: Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon.

Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin spent 21 hours on the surface before returning to Earth, arguably crowning the US as champions in the Space Race.

The Apollo programme eventually ran out of public and Congressional support and ended ahead of schedule with Apollo 17 in 1972.

  • The launch of the Space Shuttle

NASA handout photo of Space Shuttle Columbia at Kennedy Space Cente in 1981. Credit: Reuters

12 April 1981: The Space Shuttle Columbia launched on its maiden flight. Twenty years after Gagarin became the first person in space, Nasa debuted the first reusable spacecraft.

Over the next thirty years, the shuttles were workhorses, launching on a total of 133 missions.

Two of these — Challenger's STS-51-L mission in 1986 and Columbia's STS-107 flight in 2003 — ended in tragedy, with the tragic and total loss of the shuttles and their crew.

  • The International Space Station welcomes its first crew

The first ISS crew Credit: Reuters

2 November 2000: A Nasa astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first crew of the orbiting space lab, living aboard for more than four months.

Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev became the first to live aboard the ISS, and it has been continually manned since then.

  • Space Tourism

The world's first space tourist Dennis Tito gestures after landing i Credit: Reuters

April 2001: Multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the first space tourist. Since then, a lucrative industry has sprung up, fronted by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

Mr Tito reportedly paid over $20 million to fly to the International Space Station and back on board a Russian Soyuz vehicle.

  • Voyager 1

An image of Saturn taken by one of the Voyager probes in the 1980s. Credit: Nasa

Launched in September 1977, but is still transmitting today, and now at around AU (1.99×1010 km) from Earth, this vintage probe is the furthest man-made object ever dispatched and is the only probe humanity has in interstellar space.

Remarkably, this plucky probe is expected to be in service until late 2025, 48 years after it left the planet.

  • Water discovered on Mars

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks on Mars inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water are seen in an image produced by NASA Credit: Nasa

Photographs released by Nasa show the dark, narrow streaks that scientists say are formed by the flow of briny, liquid water across the surface of Mars.

It is hoped that the discovery may one day make a human colony on Mars a possibility.