December

Last Updated on 3 January 2024

December events from the history of space flight

Date	Events
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2	1993 – Space Shuttle Endeavor makes the first servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope
3	1973 – Pioneer 10 becomes first spacecraft to fly by Jupiter
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7	1995 – Galileo probe begins transmitting data on Jupiter
8	2010 – SpaceX, a private company, launches a spacecraft into orbit and returns it to earth safely. It was the first non-government organization to accomplish this.
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11	1972 – Eugene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt become the last men to walk on the moon
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14	1962 – Mariner 2 returns first data from another planet (Venus)
15	1970 – Soviet Venera 7 becomes the first probe to land on Venus
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21	1968 – Apollo 8 launched, and later her crewmembers became the first men to orbit the moon 2015 – Falcon 9 is first rocket stage to return to its launch site
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24	2013 – International Space Station has a rare spacewalk to fix an equipment cooling system
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