Luna probes reach the Moon
1959 · Event
Luna 2 becomes the first human object to strike another world; three weeks later Luna 3 photographs the Moon's hidden far side — Soviet firsts, two years into the race.
On these timelines: Spaceflight, The Space Race, Master, Russia & the USSR, Science & Technology
More from Spaceflight
- Apollo 8 orbits the Moon (1968)
- Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket (1926)
- First Space Shuttle flight (1981)
- V-2: the first rocket to reach space (1942)
- Apollo 17: the last Moon landing (1972)
- Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation (1903)
- First spacewalk (1965)
- Mir space station (1986)
Around 1959
- Vietnam War (American phase) (1965)
- Apollo 11 moon landing (1969)
- US Civil Rights Movement (1954)
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- The Troubles (1968)
- Prague Spring (1968)
- Korean War (1950)
- Cuban Revolutionary War (1953)
- Suez Crisis (1956)
- Decolonisation of Africa (1952)