1957
Sputnik
A polished sphere, 58 centimetres across, 83 kilograms. It beeped. Any radio on Earth could hear it pass.
1961
Gagarin
One orbit, 108 minutes. “Poyekhali” — let’s go — and a human being was in space.
1962
Telstar
The first live television across the Atlantic, caught by the dish at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall.
1965
Leonov
Twelve minutes outside the capsule. His suit swelled; he bled air to fit back through the hatch.
1969
Apollo 11
Two men, twenty-one hours on the Moon. Six hundred million people watched them climb down.
1971
Prospero
Black Arrow lifts Prospero from Woomera. Britain becomes the sixth nation to launch its own satellite — and the only one ever to stop. The programme had already been cancelled.
1977
Voyager
Two probes and a golden record. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in 2012 and is still sending.
1981
Columbia
A spacecraft that lands on a runway and flies again. The Shuttle flew 135 times.
1990
Hubble
A telescope above the air, with a mirror ground wrong. Astronauts fixed it by hand in 1993.
1991
Helen Sharman
A chemist from Sheffield answered a radio advert — “Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary.” Eight days on Mir. The first Briton in space.
1998
The Station
Zarya, the first module. People have lived aboard without a break since November 2000.
2004
Cassini at Saturn
Thirteen years in orbit; Huygens lands on Titan. The planet behind these words is Cassini’s photograph.
2012
Curiosity
Lowered to Mars on cables from a hovering rocket stage. It worked first time.
2015
The booster lands
A Falcon 9 first stage returns to Cape Canaveral and stands on its legs. Rockets stop being thrown away.
2015
Tim Peake
Six months on the Station for ESA. He ran the London Marathon on the treadmill, in orbit, in 3 hours 35.
2021
Webb
Eighteen gold hexagons unfold a million miles out and look back to the first galaxies.
2022
Artemis I
Orion loops the Moon with no crew and comes home: farther out than any vehicle built to carry people.
2023
Cornwall and Unst
The first orbital launch attempt from British soil fails over the Atlantic. The same year SaxaVord, on Unst in Shetland, is licensed as a spaceport.
now
Software
Every one of these was mostly software by the end. That is the part of space Britain never left. One Coalescent is software, built in Kent.
A short history of space
Nineteen moments, 1957 to now. The British ones are marked: a country that put a satellite up on its own rocket, stopped, and is finding its way back.
- 1957
Sputnik
A polished sphere, 58 centimetres across, 83 kilograms. It beeped. Any radio on Earth could hear it pass.
- 1961
Gagarin
One orbit, 108 minutes. “Poyekhali” — let’s go — and a human being was in space.
- 1962
Telstar
The first live television across the Atlantic, caught by the dish at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall.
- 1965
Leonov
Twelve minutes outside the capsule. His suit swelled; he bled air to fit back through the hatch.
- 1969
Apollo 11
Two men, twenty-one hours on the Moon. Six hundred million people watched them climb down.
- 1971
Prospero
Black Arrow lifts Prospero from Woomera. Britain becomes the sixth nation to launch its own satellite — and the only one ever to stop. The programme had already been cancelled.
- 1977
Voyager
Two probes and a golden record. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in 2012 and is still sending.
- 1981
Columbia
A spacecraft that lands on a runway and flies again. The Shuttle flew 135 times.
- 1990
Hubble
A telescope above the air, with a mirror ground wrong. Astronauts fixed it by hand in 1993.
- 1991
Helen Sharman
A chemist from Sheffield answered a radio advert — “Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary.” Eight days on Mir. The first Briton in space.
- 1998
The Station
Zarya, the first module. People have lived aboard without a break since November 2000.
- 2004
Cassini at Saturn
Thirteen years in orbit; Huygens lands on Titan. The planet behind these words is Cassini’s photograph.
- 2012
Curiosity
Lowered to Mars on cables from a hovering rocket stage. It worked first time.
- 2015
The booster lands
A Falcon 9 first stage returns to Cape Canaveral and stands on its legs. Rockets stop being thrown away.
- 2015
Tim Peake
Six months on the Station for ESA. He ran the London Marathon on the treadmill, in orbit, in 3 hours 35.
- 2021
Webb
Eighteen gold hexagons unfold a million miles out and look back to the first galaxies.
- 2022
Artemis I
Orion loops the Moon with no crew and comes home: farther out than any vehicle built to carry people.
- 2023
Cornwall and Unst
The first orbital launch attempt from British soil fails over the Atlantic. The same year SaxaVord, on Unst in Shetland, is licensed as a spaceport.
- now
Software
Every one of these was mostly software by the end. That is the part of space Britain never left. One Coalescent is software, built in Kent.
Saturn: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute, Cassini, 2008 (PIA11141), public domain. Dates from NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and the UK Space Agency.