19 December
2003: on 19 December 2003, ESA's Mars Express released its Beagle 2 lander and set it on a trajectory for a landing on Mars.
31 DEC. 2003
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1996: On 20 December 1996, Carl Sagan died.
Sagan was an American astronomer exobiologist and science writer. He stimulated popular interest in astronomy through his writing, lectures, and the television series 'Cosmos'.
Sagan was a leading figure in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He studied the possibility of life on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. He also played a prominent role in the US space programme, with his involvement in the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager spacecraft expeditions.
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18 December
1958: On 18 December 1958, the world's first communications satellite, SCORE, was launched from Cape Canaveral, United States.
17 December
1903: On 17 December 1903, the Wright brothers flew the first flight in an aeroplane.
16 December
1826: Giovanni Battista Donati was born.Donati was an Italian astronomer who, on 5 August 1864, was the first to observe the spectrum of a comet (Comet 1864 II). This observation ...
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