Top 10 Most Important Space Missions in History

It all started with the Cold War (hello, history class!) And it was thanks to the space race of the United States and the Soviet Union that we were led to the first exploration in outer space.

1. Sputinik I

Yeah, we know who won that race. The Soviet Union launched Sputinik I on October 8, 1957. This moment introduced humanity to the Space Age and brought unprecedented information about the Earth's atmosphere. Its end came in January 1958 when Sputinik I exploded into earth orbit.

2. Vostok I

The first man to break through space was Yuri Gagarin during the Soviet Vostok I mission on April 12, 1961. This trip took just 1 hour and 48 minutes and Gagarin ejected from the spacecraft to Earth following the original plan. Fun fact: First and foremost, a test mission took place with a Vostok I prototype that contained a male dummy and a puppy.

3. Apollo 11

"A small step for man, a giant leap for humanity." On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed and Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. In less than 20 minutes, pilot Buzz Aldrin joined Neil in a three-hour walk, experimenting and collecting lunar samples. The US ship returned to Earth on July 24.

4. Apollo 13

The spacecraft was launched on April 11, 1970. An open-air broadcast came 56 hours later, in which crew members Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise were speaking to the home crowd. At that time, an explosion occurred within the module and the mission was aborted. Against all odds, on April 17, they were all well and back on Earth.

5. STS-51-L

This was the 25th US space shuttle mission, launched on January 28, 1986. It lasted only 73 seconds when, after its launch, a defective rocket led to the ship's disintegration. All seven crew members died instantly.

6. Voyager 1

Launched in 1977, it remains firm and strong to this day (just like Voyager 2). The spacecraft located volcanoes on Jupiter's moon, collected new information about Saturn's rings, and in 1990 she photographed our entire Solar System.

7. Mars Pathfinder

The spacecraft departed on December 4, 1996, and only a year later, on July 4, explorations began. Sojourner analyzed the atmosphere, climate and geology of Mars and found evidence of past tidal waters.

8. International Space Station

The United States and Russia released the first two pieces of the Station in the fall of 1998. On November 2, 2000, the first crew arrived. Astronauts around the world continue to work on experiments at the Station that recently completed more than 20 years orbiting Earth.

9. Kepler

Leaving Florida on March 7, 2009, his mission was to explore new planets. Four years later, its end came, and in 2014, Kepler 2 went into action, continuing exploration. In May 2016, 1, 284 planets were identified and only nine were considered habitable.

10. Cassini-Huygens

The Cassini and Huygens probes were a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian. Information about Saturn's rings and moons and about Jupiter was collected. They explored space for twenty years and ended their mission on September 15, 2017.