June 3

On this day - June 3 1965 - The first american to do a Space Walk 

The first spacewalk ever was done in march 1965 by Alexey Leonov. Americans was not far behind, and Edward Higgins White became the first american to do a space walk on June 3 (Also known as Extravehicular activity). He was the pilot on the Germini 4 launch, and it was during this trip he did his first space walk. The space walk lasted for 21 minutts on a 7.6m tether. Edward Higgins White died only two years after his space walk in a pre-launch testing who failed for Apollo 1.

"I'm coming back in... and it's the saddest moment of my life." - E. H. White

April 16th

On this day - 16 April 1972 - Apollo 16 launched

On April 16th 1972 Apollo 16 launched from Kennedy Space Center. Apollo 16 was the tenth manned mission in the Apollo space program and the fifth to land on the moon. The mission was crewed by commander John W. Young, commander Thomas K. Mattingly II and pilot Charles M. Duke, Jr. Mattingly was supposed to join the Apollo 13 launch, but he contracted measles and was replaced three days before the launch. Young and Duke spent 71 hours on the moon. The mission returned with almost a 100 kg of lunar samples. Apollo 16 returned to earth on April 27th spending a total of 11 days and almost two hours in space. 

March 10th

On this day - March 10th 2006 - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached Mars 

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was designed to conduct reconnaissance on Mars. The MRO was built by Lockheed Martin and the mission was managed the California Institute for Technology. The mission was under the direction of NASA. It was launched August 12th 2005 and got into orbit around Mars on March 10th 2006. When the MRO reached orbit it joined the five other active spacecrafts either on Mars or in orbit at the time the most crafts around Mars. The MRO mission is to survey the planet for future landing sites, monitor the weather and climate and search for liquids. The equipment for sending data back to Earth is also more advanced and the bandwidth supported by the MRO was more than all the other Mars missions combined. A side mission for the MRO was to find the previously lost Mars Polar Lander and Beagle 2. Beagle 2 was found in the beginning of 2015. After the main mission is completed the MRO will aid future probes with communicating with Earth and function as a navigation system for future probes.

February 5th

On this day - February 5th 1971 - The Apollo 14 mission landed on the moon 

Commander Alan Shepard, commander Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and  Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on January 31, 1971. When they landed on the moon it was the third moon landing. The Apollo mission series placed man on the moon six times and Apollo 17 is the last time there have been people on the Moon. Shepard and Mitchell made their decent in the original target for Apollo 13 who aborted its mission. The lessons learned by Apollo 13 caused Apollo 14 to be changed to not repeat the accident.  During their mission they collected 42.80 Kg of Moon rocks. Shepard even made time for hitting two golf balls with a makeshift club. Mitchell and Shepard spent 33.5 hours on the Moon. Commander Roosa never sat foot on the Moon, he stayed behind doing experiments and took photos.  When the mission returned to Earth they landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9th.

Alan Shepard next to the American Flagg 

December 25th

On this day – 25th of December 2003 – Mars landing of Beagle 2 

Beagle 2 is a British landing spacecraft that was part of ESA's (European Space Agency) 2003 Mars Express mission. Beagle 2 was named after the HMS Beagle. After a successful deployment from the Mars Express on the 19th Beagle 2 was supposed to land on Mars on December 25th. How ever the Beagle 2 lost contact and never contacted back to Earth. After numerous attempts to contact the craft was considered lost and the mission a failure in February 2004. The fate of Beagle 2 was not known until January 2015 when NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter located Beagle 2. The images from the NASA vehicle suggest that the solar panels failed to deploy and thereby blocking the communications antenna.