Spacecraft Test Technicians

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. Less than four months later on January 31, 1958, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1. These launches marked the beginning of the Space Age. In the ensuing decades, there have been many space milestones, including: the first person in space (Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961), the first person to walk on the moon (American Neil Armstrong in 1969), the first space station (the Soviet space station Salyut 1 in 1971), the first space shuttle to be launched (the American shuttle Columbia in 1981), the first launch vehicle fully developed by a private company to reach space (Pegasus, which was launched by Orbital Sciences Corporation in 1990), and the first private company to send humans into space (SpaceX in 2020). From the 1950s through today, spacecraft test technicians have played an important role in helping to build, test, and launch rockets, space shuttles, satellites, space telescopes, deep-space probes, and other types of spacecraft.