The base of the jovial groove as the little group walked was a lilting, repeating riff on the kora, the 21-string harp-lute that a musician played with its base propped against his torso, plucking with his thumbs. â
The Vanguard team was still working on a test vehicle (TV-2) designed to test the first stage of the rocket when they learned of the launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, by the USSR on October 4, 1957. On December 2, the Department of Defense announced the imminent launch of TV-3.
Artist's conception of Venus Express. Image credit: ESA. The first spacecraft ever launched towards Venus was the Soviet Venera 1 spacecraft. It was launched on February 12, 1961 on course to Venus. Unfortunately, scientists lost contact with the spacecraft on February 17th.ission controllers didnât get a chance to put in a course correction that would have directed it closer to Venus, so itâs thought to have passed within 100,000 km of the planet on May 19th. Thatâs a total time of 97 days; just over 3 months. The first successful Venus flyby was NASAâs Mariner 2.