Exploration of the Moon that a lunar lander would not sink into a thick layer of dust, as had been feared. The first artificial satellite of the Moon was the Soviet probe Luna 10, launched March 31, 1966. On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, became the first human beings to enter lunar orbit and see the far side of the Moon in person. Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first human to walk on the lunar surface was Neil Armstrong, commander of the U.S. mission Apollo 11. The first
1977 in spaceflight 1977 in spaceflight Spaceflight in 1977 included some important events such as the roll out of the space shuttle orbiter, Voyager 1 and Voyager space probes were launched. NASA received the space shuttle orbiter later named , on 14 January. This unpowered sub-orbital space plane was launched off the top of a modified 747 and was flown unmanned until 13 August until a manned crew landed the "Enterprise" for the first time. In August and September, the two Voyager spacecraft to the outer planets were launched. Voyager 2, launched on 20 August, went on to fly past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus