October 4, 1957
Project Vanguard was managed by the United States Research Laboratory (NRL) and intended to launch the first artificial satellite into orbit using a Vanguard rocket from the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex.

November 1957
Explorer program was relaunched in response to the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik 1.

January 31, 1958
United States launches Explorer I from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

October 1, 1958
NASA is formed after Congress passes the National Aeronautics and Space Act.

October 11, 1958
NASA launches its first spacecraft, Pioneer 1, a Thor-Able space probe.

December 18, 1958
Launch of "SCORE" (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) communications payload. Atlas 10B/SCORE, the first voice relay satellite, was used to relay President Eisenhower's Christmas message which was the first voice transmitted from space.

Mercury program launched (1959 - 1963)
Project Mercury was the Unites States first human spaceflight program and its goal was to put a human into orbit around the Earth. The program included 20 unmanned launches, followed by two suborbital and four orbital flights with astronaut pilots.

March 3rd, 1959
Pioneer 4 launched to the Moon, successfully completing the first US lunar fly-by returning radiation data.

Nov 8, 1960
First flight of a production Mercury spacecraft. Little Joe 5 was launched from Wallops Island, Virginia. Sixteen seconds after liftoff, the escape rocket and the tower jettison rocket both fired prematurely. Also, the booster, capsule and escape tower failed to separate as intended.

May 5, 1961
With the launch of Freedom 7, Alan Shepard becomes the first American man in space. The suborbital flight, which was part of the Mercury Project, lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds.

Apollo program launched (1961 - 1972)
Commencement of the Apollo program which was created to achieve the national goal of 'landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth'. The program operated from 1961 to 1972.

February 20, 1962
Launch of Friendship 7 (also part of the Mercury Project) makes astronaut John Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth. Total flight time was just shy of five hours.

May 15, 1963
Faith 7 sends astronaut Gordon Cooper into space and he becomes the first American to spend over a day in space. Total flight time was 1 day, 10 hours and 19 mins.

Gemini Program Launched (1963 - 1965)
Gemini program initiated to develop space travel techniques in support of the Apollo missions. The program ran between 1963 and 1966 and resulted in ten manned flights.

April 8, 1964
First test flight of the Gemini program. It did not have humal life support systems. Although it featured a heat shield, the shield had four large holes drilled in it to make sure that the spacecraft was destroyed during reentry. In place of the crew couches were measuring equipment that relayed telemetry measuring the pressure, vibration, acceleration, temperature, and structural loads during the short flight.

March 23, 1965
Gemini III first manned flight of the Gemini program. The spacecraft, nicknamed Molly Brown, performed the seventh manned US spaceflight and was the final manned flight controlled from Cape Canaveral, Florida before mission control functions were shifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

June 3-7, 1965
Gemini IV first space walk. The second piloted Gemini mission stayed aloft for four days and astronaut Edward H. White II performed the first EVA or spacewalk by an American.

August 21, 1965
Launch of Gemini V, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad on an eight-day mission to test rendezvous guidance and navigation systems, as well as study how humans could handle long-term exposure to a space environment. Gemini would be the critical link between the early Mercury Project and the Apollo missions.

January 20, 1966
First fully operational test flights of the Launch Escape System (LES). LES consisted of a top-mounted rocket connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and was used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency.

November 11, 1966
Gemini XII is the final flight of the Gemini program. Astronauts Lovell and Aldrin Rendezvoused and docked manually with its target and kept station with it during EVA. Aldrin set an EVA record of 5 hours 30 minutes for one space walk and two stand-up exercises, and demonstrated solutions to previous EVA problems.

January 27, 1967
Mission AS-204 is struck by tragedy when a flash fire breaks out during a launch pad test, killing three astronauts: Virgil Grissom, who had participated in Mercury and Gemini flights; Edward White, who conducted NASA's first extravehicular activity; and new astronaut Roger Chaffee. The mission, one of NASA's first major setbacks, was later renamed Apollo 1.

November 9, 1967
First test flight of the Saturn V rocket, which would carry dozens of spacecraft into space in the years to come.

January 22, 1968
Apollo 5 was the first unmanned test flight of the Lunar Module.

October 11, 1968
Apollo 7 was the first Apollo manned mission and orbited the earth for 11 days to test the Command Module which had been redesigned following the Apollo 1 fire.

July 16, 1969
Launch of Apollo 11, the mission that would fulfill President John F Kennedy's goal of reaching the Moon before the Soviet Union.

March 2, 1972
The Launch of unmanned Pioneer 10 provided a bunch of firsts for the space program. Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 were robotic space probes. Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972 and its mission was to send back data and images of Jupiter. It was the first spacecraft to fly through the asteroid belt, fly to Jupiter and make close-up observations, Saturn, the Milky Way Galaxy and reach escape velocity to leave our Solar System. Pioneer 10 sent its last communication back to Earth on January 22, 2003, while 7.6 billion miles from home.

July 15, 1975
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project is the first international manned space flight to test out cooperated space rescue and docking. This was the first joint U.S.- Soviet space flight.

August 20, 1975
Launch of Viking 1, the first orbiter and lander sent to Mars. Viking 2 would launch a few weeks later. Both landed safely on Mars and for six years sent back the first set of images and data from the Martian surface.

August 12, 1977
ALT-12 - First free flight of the Space Shuttle. Enterprise was built for NASA as part of the Space Shuttle program to perform test flights in the atmosphere. It was constructed without engines or a functional heat shield, and was therefore not capable of spaceflight. It was originally planned to be named Constitution. A campaign by fans of the television show 'Star Trek' to President Gerald Ford asked that the orbiter be named after the Starship Enterprise, featured on the television show. Although Ford did not mention the campaign, the president said that he was "partial to the name" and overrode NASA officials.

August 20, 1977
Launch of Voyager 2, one of a pair of spacecraft sent by NASA on what was supposed to be a five-year mission to study Jupiter and Saturn. Voyagers 1 and 2 continue to send back pictures and data today, 30 years later from nearly 10 billion miles away.

September 5, 1977
Launch of Voyager 1. Voyager 1 would later return some incredible images from its encounter with Jupiter and Saturn.

May 20, 1978
Launch of the first of two spacecrafts called Pioneer Venus, which would study the Venusian atmosphere.

October 3, 1985
STS-51-J - First flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Department of Defense classified mission.

March 14, 1995
Astronaut Norman Thagard launched with Cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov aboard a Russian Soyuz to spend 115 days on Mir.

November 20, 1998
First piece of the International Space Station is launched.

November 2, 2000
The crew of Expedition One, astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, dock at the International Space Station. They are the first people to take up residence at the ISS, staying there for several months.

June 10 and July 7, 2003
Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity launch.

September 8, 2004
After capturing particles from the sun, Genesis makes a dramatic crash landing in Utah when its parachute fails to deploy. Despite the landing, scientists still managed to recover and study the samples.

January 19, 2006
New Horizons launched from Cape Canaveral. This robotic spacecraft is currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons.