History is what lets the future happen. No history, no future. April is a very special month in the year in regard of historic events in aerospace, so we decided to let you know a little bit more about what has happened in the Aprils of the past.

31st of March

• 1966 The Soviet Union launches the Luna 10 mission to send a space probe to orbit the moon. To achieve a lunar orbit, Luna 10’s mission planners had to build a dynamic model of the Sun-Earth-Moon-Spaceprobe system of sufficient accuracy that an approximation of the solution to a series of differential equations will result in a lunar orbit, instead of crashing on the lunar surface or flinging wide into the solar system.

3rd of April

• 1966 The Soviet Luna 10 mission completes a translunar trajectory and inserts into lunar orbit. This makes it the first man-made craft to orbit the moon, and gives the USSR another leg up in the space race.

6th of April

• 1965 Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird) was the first (commercial) communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit. Intelsat I was the first satellite to provide direct and nearly instantaneous communications between Europe and North America, handling television, telephone, and fax transmissions. It has been deactivated, but it is still in its geosynchronous orbit.

7th of April

• 1969 Steve Crocker circulates a request for comments on his design for the networking software for ARPANET. This is the beginning of the Internet, which accelerated research in many different fields, including space exploration. The name also stuck and Internet standards are still called Requests for Comments (RFC).
• 1983 STS-6, the sixth space shuttle (Space Transportation System) mission, was the first to use the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), an upgrade of the Apollo program space suit. The EMU provides environmental protection, mobility, life support, and communications and is still in use aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

9th of April

• 1959 NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts for Project Mercury, whom the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".

11th of April

• 1970 Apollo 13 launches from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. After 2 successful moon landings in the previous missions, this is expected to be a routine flight, but en route to the moon an oxygen tank explodes and causes further damage to the mission vehicle. This oxygen tank was necessary to provide water for the astronauts and electricity to the service module of the mission. Lacking this, the mission was aborted, but there were several obstacles to bringing the astronauts back to earth. The dramatic events of this mission inspired several movies.

12th of April

• 1961 The soviet kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launches onboard Vostok 1 from the Baikonur Kosmodrome and becomes the first human in space, marking the start of manned spaceflight. Gagarin completed a single orbit before returning to earth. After Sputnik 1, this extended the USSR’s lead in the space race.
  
• 1981 STS-1 launches the orbiter Columbia into earth orbit. This is the first time a reusable spacecraft is used. This successful mission paved the way for the construction and refitting of the other shuttles: Challenger, Enterprise, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor. Challenger was a structural prototype that was later refitted to full capability. Enterprise was used for atmospheric flight tests, and intended for refit to full capability, but major design changes made this too expensive. Enterprise never completed a space mission. The U.S. shuttle program has been scheduled for retirement in mid-2011 without a clear successor. This makes for an uncertain future for manned space exploration.

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