Happy International Day to All Astronauts

The International Day of Astronauts, also known as Yuri’s Night, is a celebration of human space exploration that takes place on April 12th every year. This day commemorates the first human spaceflight, carried out by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Apr. 12th, 1961, and the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Shuttle, which took place on Apr. 12th, 1981.
Apr. 12 became the International Day of Human Space Flight, or International Day of Astronauts, after the adoption of resolution A/RES/65/271 by the UN General Assembly in 2011.
Russia and the United States have a long history in astronomy and space exploration. They have played a significant role in developing technology and sending missions to explore the cosmos. Both countries have their own space programs, with Russia’s Roscosmos and the United States’ NASA being the primary agencies responsible for their respective country’s space activities.
Russia was the first country to launch a satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957, and sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space in 1961. Since then, Russia has been involved in many space missions, including launching satellites, conducting scientific research, and building the International Space Station (ISS) in collaboration with the United States and other countries.
Russia has continued its long history of successes and developments in space exploration in recent years. One such important event was the launch of the Nauka module—a research laboratory which will maximize the ability of the ISS to conduct scientific experimentation and study—which was added to the (ISS) in July 2021.
Russia continued to make strides that year in other fields of space exploration. Russia launched the Arktika-M satellite in December in order to monitor the weather and climate in the Arctic region. The satellite will offer valuable data to scientists investigating the consequences of climate change in these northern latitudes, which have been shown to have been most profoundly affected by global warming.
The U.S. has also been a prominent contributor to space exploration, with NASA pioneering human spaceflight. In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, and beginning in 1981, NASA’s Space Shuttle program enabled the U.S. to launch its own satellites and undertake scientific research in space.
The U.S. also made significant progress in space exploration in 2021. The successful launch of the Artemis I mission in November marked the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft’s maiden test flight. The project was designed to test the capabilities of the SLS and the Orion, which would ostensibly be used for future manned missions to the moon and beyond. Artemis remains an integral component of NASA’s ambition to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by the end of the decade.
The successful deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in December of that year was another noteworthy milestone. The JWST is the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope, and it is intended to transform our knowledge of the cosmos. The JWST will be used to investigate the beginnings of the cosmos, galaxy creation, and the hunt for inhabitable planets beyond our solar system.
In recent years, China has achieved major advances in astronomy and space research, as well. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has launched several satellites and completed many manned space flights as part of its space program.
Other countries such as Japan and India, and also the European Space Agency (ESA), have made significant contributions to astronomy and space exploration. Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has conducted several missions to explore asteroids and the moon. India’s space agency, ISRO, has sent several spacecraft to explore the moon and Mars, and the ESA has conducted numerous missions to explore the solar system, including the Rosetta mission to land a probe on a comet.