TIMELINE - Text only version

Around 400BC

A steam-propelled wooden pigeon makes the first recorded rocket-like flight.

As an entertainment, the Greek, Archytas, used steam escaping from inside a wooden pigeon to propel the bird along a wire.

Around 100BC

Hero uses escaping steam to create spinning sphere.

The Greek known as Hero of Alexandria invented the aeolipile, a steam turbine sometimes known as Hero’s Engine. Steam fed into the sphere escaped from L-shaped nozzles on opposite sides and made the sphere spin round. Instead of recognising it as a useful source of power however, the machine seems to have been seen as just another entertainment.

13th Century

The first reported use of true rockets.

Chinese fire-arrows were the first simple solid-fuel rockets. They were very much like modern firework rockets, with a tube of gunpowder, sealed at the top end and attached to a long stick. When the gunpowder was ignited, it burned rapidly to produce flame, smoke and - most importantly - gases that escaped from the rear of the tube and created the thrust that pushed the rocket forward. The stick kept the rocket going in the right direction.

The first reported use of rockets as weapons in Europe.

17th Century

• 1647

The Art of Gunnery is published in London with a 43-page section on rockets as weapons.

• 1650

The invention of the first multi-stage rocket.

Johann Schmidlap, a German fireworks maker, invented a ‘step rocket’ to create more spectacular displays. A large first-stage rocket carried a smaller second-stage rocket aloft. When the first-stage burned out, the second-stage carried on up and threw out glowing cinders to delight the crowds below.

• 1686

Rocket science is born.

Sir Isaac Newton publishes his three laws of motion, which explain - among many other things - how rocket propulsion works.

18th Century

Scientists in Russia and Germany experiment with rockets with masses of 40 kilograms or more.

19th Century

Rockets revived as a weapon of war.

20th Century

• 1903

The ‘Father of Modern Astronautics’ suggests space exploration by rocket.

Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky realises that liquid propellants would give rockets the speed and range they would need to escape the Earth’s atmosphere and into space.

• March 1926

The first successful flight of liquid-propellant rocket is carried out on March 16th.

The rocket, designed by the American Robert Goddard and fuelled by gasoline and liquid oxygen, made a 2.5 second flight, landing just 50 metres from the launch site.

• 1931

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev forms a Moscow group for the investigation of jet propulsion.

• 1932

Germany takes on Werner von Braun to develop rocket-powered weapons.

• March 1942

The first A4 rocket takes to the skies.

In its first flight, Von Braun’s A4 rocket, known later as the V2, rose only about 100 metres, then crashed into the sea, just over a kilometre from the launch site.

• October 1942

A successful A4 flight marks beginning of the space age.

At their third attempt, von Braun’s team got the result they wanted. The alcohol/liquid oxygen propellant carries the A4 200 kilometres to strike the selected target.

• September 1944

The first V2s are launched against London.

• June 1945

Sergei Korolev witnesses US-sanctioned test launches of V2 rockets in liberated Europe.

This signalled the starting point for the Soviet Space Programme, culminating in the first man in space and the first manned space station.

• 1946

Werner von Braun's rocket team relocate to the US to work on new US Space Programme.

The first V2 is launched in the United States.

The Soviet Union transfers all remaining rocket technology from Germany to secret locations in the USSR.

• 1948

The launch of the first Soviet R-1 rocket, based on V2 design.

• 1949

The first entirely Soviet-designed rocket, R-2E, is launched.

First launch of US Viking rocket.

• 1950

First launch of Bumper, a two-stage US designed rocket combining a V2-type first-stage and a WAC Corporal second-stage.

• 1957

4th October
The USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.

3rd November
Laika, a Soviet dog, becomes first living creature to orbit the Earth.

• 1958

January
America’s first satellite is launched into orbit.

A Jupiter-Redstone rocket, essentially a highly refined development of the V2, launches Explorer I - America's first orbiting satellite.

October
America launches the first unmanned lunar probe.

The launch vehicle is an Atlas first-stage with an Able second-stage. Unfortunately it fails 45 seconds after lift-off when part of the structure tears away.

• 1959

Soviets launch Luna 1, which flies past the Moon in January.

• 1961

In April Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to orbit Earth, and is in space for 108 minutes.

Less than a month later the first American, Alan Shepard, makes a short sub-orbital flight into space, returning immediately to Earth.

Russia starts development of the Proton launcher, which remains in use today.

• 1962

An Atlas rocket launches the first American into orbit.

Mariner 2 is the first space probe to fly past another planet - Venus.

• 1963

A Russian, Valentina Tereshkova, becomes the first woman in space.

• 1965

The first manned Gemini flight.

A Titan II rocket powers Virgil Grissom and John Young into space to make three orbits of the earth - the first of a long series of flights which paved the way for the Apollo Moon programme.

• 1967

The Soviets assemble the first N1 rocket using NK-15 engines.

The rocket uses 30 of the radical and highly efficient NK15 engines designed by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. The NK15 was the first successful closed-cycle rocket engine, developing an extra 25 percent lifting power by channelling the exhaust products from the pre-burner into the combustion chamber to be re-fired.

• 1968

The launch of Apollo 7, which orbits the earth for 11 days.

• February 1969

The first test flight of unmanned N1 rocket, which explodes 40 kilometres from the launch site. A second unsuccessful launch takes place in July.

• 16th July

Apollo 11 blasts off carrying the first humans to land on the surface of the Moon.

• 20th July

Apollo 11 lands - Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men on the Moon.

• 1970

A Long March rocket launches Mao1, China’s first space satellite.

The three-stage rocket is 30 metres high and 2 metres in diameter. Its maximum payload is 300 kilogrammes.

• 1971

The third and fourth N1 rockets both explode in mid-air.

• 1972

The launch of Pioneer 10, destination Jupiter.

• 1973

A new NK33 engine introduced for N1 rocket.

The NK33 is the most powerful liquid oxygen/kerosene engine ever built. Compared to the NK15, it has improved reliability, thrust and restart capability.

The Saturn V booster launches Skylab 1 into orbit.

• 1974

The Soviet Politburo abandons the N1 programme and order rockets to be dismantled.

NK33 engines are secretly taken into store.

• 1975

Viking 1 makes the first trip to Mars.

• 1977

Voyagers 1 and 2 set off to explore the outer regions of the solar system.

• 1981

The first launch of the US Space Shuttle.

• 1987

Russia’s Energia rocket is launched.

• 1988

A Long March 4 rocket launches a Chinese weather satellite into orbit. China also launches a new Weaver Girl 1 rocket.

• 1993

The first of Atlas Centaur rockets’ series of 46 successful missions.

US rocket scientists are taken to see stored NK33s.

Scientists from the US company Aerojet are amazed to find a store of over 60 pristine engines, of a compact design that they had never seen before. What surprised them most was that the engines used the closed-cycle technology that had been rejected by American rocket scientists as being too risky.

• 1995

The first static test firing in the USA of a Russian-built NK33 engine.

• 1999

China enters the space travel arena.

The latest version of China’s Long March rocket launches an unmanned prototype of a re-useable capsule which has been designed to carry humans into orbit in 21st century.

• 2000

An American Atlas rocket equipped with a single Russian RD180 rocket engine successfully blasts off from Cape Canaveral.

The RD180 is the latest development in closed-loop rocket technology. It is so powerful that a single engine replaces five of the US-designed engines used for previous Atlas rocket launches.

• 2001 and beyond

US/Russian co-operation continues.

Atlas V, a new family of US rockets incorporating the Russian RD180 engine, will be ready for service in late 2001.

top