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Curated category

1957 in spaceflight

  • PGM-19 JupiterIn 1954, the US Army asked Rocketdyne to build an engine with a thrust of 135,000 pounds. This request came as Wernher von Braun's team at Redstone Arsenal…
  • LaikaA stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow became the first animal to orbit Earth. Soviet scientists chose this three-year-old female because they assumed…
  • Space AgeOn the 20th of June 1944, a German V-2 rocket became the first manmade object to enter space. This brief flight occurred during World War II and remained…
  • Sputnik crisisIn the early 1950s, Lockheed U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union provided intelligence that the US held the advantage in nuclear capability.