March 30, 1961 : USA’s NASA Civilian X-15 Pilot Joseph A Walker Becomes First Person Ever To Fly Above 50 Km
Joseph Walker flew the X-15 to 51.7 km and became the first person ever to fly above 50 km. His record only lasted about two weeks and was broken when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went into orbit on 12 April 1961.
March 30, 2006 : Marcos Cesar Pontes Launched In Russian Spacecraft To The ISS (EO-10) Becoming First Brazilian In Space
A Russian-US crew bound for the International Space Station (ISS) launched at 8:30 a.m. ALMT Thursday (0230 UTC) from the cosmodome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan in a Russian Soyuz TMA rocket. Included with the crew was Marcos Cesar Pontes, 43, Brazil’s first astronaut.
Pontes, who flies for the Brazilian Air Force, was joined on the trip by Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams. The Russian and U.S. astronauts will be spending the next six months onboard the ISS. In ten days Pontes will return along with outgoing astronauts American Bill McArthur and Russian Valery Tokarev.
March 31, 1966 : USSR’s Luna 10 Launched Toward The Moon Becoming First Spacecraft To Orbit Moon Or Any Other Heavenly Body
USSR’s Luna 10 was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 10. The Luna 10 spacecraft was launched towards the Moon from an Earth orbiting platform on March 31, 1966. It was the first artificial satellite of the Moon (or another heavenly body, for that matter).
The spacecraft entered lunar orbit on April 3, 1966 and completed its first orbit 3 hours later (on April 4, Moscow time). Scientific instruments included a gamma-ray spectrometer, a triaxial magnetometer, a meteorite detector, instruments for solar-plasma studies, and devices for measuring infrared emissions from the Moon and radiation conditions of the lunar environment. Gravitational studies were also conducted.
The spacecraft played back to Earth the "International" during the Twenty-third Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Luna 10 was battery powered and operated for 460 lunar orbits and 219 active data transmissions before radio signals were discontinued on 30 May 1966.
Luna 10 is still in orbit.
March 31, 1970 : USA Explorer 1, First US Satellite Reentered Earth’s Atmosphere After 12 Years In Orbit
USA Explorer 1 was the first successfully launched US satellite. Launched 1 February 1958 on an adapted Jupiter-C rocket, Explorer 1 carried instrumentation for the study of cosmic rays, micrometeorites, and for monitoring of the satellite’s temperature. Explorer 1 re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on 31 March 1970, after more than twelve years in orbit.
March 31, 1997 : USA Ended Pioneer 10 Mission After 25 Years And Will Arrive Aldeberan In Constellation Taurus In 2 Million Years
After 25 years of operation, routine telemetry and ground control with Pioneer 10 it’s mission was terminated when funding was cut off in favor of more scientifically productive heliospheric missions.
The probe at that time iwas 6.7 billion miles from Earth, traveling at 28,000 miles per hour. In two million years, it will reach the red giant Aldeberan in the constellation of Taurus.
However, as part of a training program, American controllers of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft, in orbit around the Moon, were given permission to contact Pioneer 10 once again in 1998. Since that time, Pioneer 10′s weak signal has been tracked by the DSN as part of a study of advanced communication technology for future interstellar probes.
