Timeline of Rocket and Missile Technology - 20th Century

20th Century

• 1903 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky begins a series of papers discussing the use of rocketry to reach outer space, space suits, and colonization of the solar system. Two key points discussed in his works are liquid fuels and staging.

• 1922 - Hermann Oberth publishes Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("By Rocket into Planetary Space").

• 1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid fuel rocket.

• 1927 - Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR - "Spaceflight Society") founded in Germany.

• 1929 - Woman in the Moon, considered to be one of the first "serious" science fiction films.

• 1939 - Katyusha multiple rocket launchers (Russian: Катюша) are a type of rocket artillery first built and fielded by the Soviet Union.

• 1942 - Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger launch the first V-2 rocket at Peenemünde in northern Germany.

• 1942 - A V-2 rocket becomes the first man-made object in space.

• 1942 - Case bonded castable solid rocket motors

• 1945 - Lothar Sieber dies after the first vertical take-off manned rocket flight in a Bachem Ba 349 "Natter"

• 1949 - Willy Ley publishes The Conquest of Space

• 1952 - Wernher von Braun discusses the technical details of a manned exploration of Mars in The Mars Project.

• 1953 - Colliers Magazine publishes a series of articles on man's future in space, igniting the interest of people around the world. The series includes numerous articles by Ley and von Braun, illustrated by Chesley Bonestell.

• 1957 - Launch of the first ICBM, the USSR's R-7 (8K71), known to NATO as the SS-6 Sapwood.

• 1957 - The USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.

• 1958 - The U.S. launches Explorer 1, the first American artificial satellite, on a Jupiter-C rocket.

• 1958 - US launches their first ICBM, the Atlas-B (the Atlas-A was a test article only).

• 1961 - the USSR launches Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin reached a height of 327 km above Earth and was the first man to orbit earth.

• 1961 - US, a Mercury capsule named Freedom 7 with Alan B. Shepard, spacecraft was launched by a Redstone rocket on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight.

• 1962 - The US launches Mercury MA-6 (Friendship 7) on an Atlas D booster, John Glenn finally puts America in orbit.

• 1963 - The USSR launches Vostok 6, Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman (and first civilian) to orbit earth. She remained in space for nearly three days and orbited the earth 48 times.

• 1963 - US X-15 rocket-plane, the first reusable manned spacecraft (suborbital) reaches space, pioneering reusability, carried launch and glide landings.

• 1965 - USSR Proton rocket, highly successful launch vehicle with notable payloads, Salyut 6 & Salyut 7, Mir & ISS components

• 1965 - Robert Salked investigates various single stage to orbit spaceplane concepts

• 1966 - USSR Luna 9, the first soft landing on the Moon

• 1966 - USSR launches Soyuz spacecraft, longest-running series of spacecraft, eventually serving Soviet, Russian and International space missions.

• 1969 - US Apollo 11, first men on the Moon, first lunar surface extravehicular activity.

• 1981 - US space shuttle pioneers reusability and glide landings

• 1998 - US Deep Space 1 is first deep space mission to use an ion thruster for propulsion

• 1998 - Russia launch Zarya module which is the first part of International Space Station