1977 in spaceflight

1977 in spaceflight

Launch of Voyager 2 on a Titan IIIE
Orbital launches
First	6 January
Last	27 December
Total	130
Catalogued	124
Rockets
Maiden flights	Mu-3H Tsyklon-3
Retirements	Kosmos-2I Titan IIIE
Manned flights
Orbital	3
Total travellers	6

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 Enterprise, 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 and Neptune. Voyager 1, which was launched on 5 September, flew past Jupiter and Saturn, with a planned flyby of Pluto being cancelled in favour of a closer flyby of Titan.