Timeline of space exploration – Wikipedia

DateMission successCountry/organizationMission nameRef(s)12 April 1981First Reusable crewed orbital spacecraft. USA (NASA)STS-11 March 1982First Venus soil samples and sound recording of another world. USSRVenera 1319 August 1982First mixed gender crew aboard space station, and first woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, on space station. USSRSalyut 725 January 1983First Infrared orbital observatory. USA (NASA) UK (SERC) Netherlands (NIVR)IRAS13 June 1983First spacecraft beyond the orbit of Neptune (first spacecraft to pass beyond all Solar System planets). USA (NASA)Pioneer 107 February 1984First untethered spacewalk, Bruce McCandless II. USA (NASA)STS-41-B25 July 1984First spacewalk by woman, Svetlana Savitskaya. USSRSalyut 711 June 1985First balloon deployed on another planet (Venus). USSRVega 124 January 1986First Uranus flyby (closest approach 81,500 kilometers (44,000nmi)). USA (NASA)Voyager 228 January 1986First major American space loss, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, an explosion soon after liftoff which killed, among others, Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher. USA (NASA)STS-51-L19 February 1986First consistently inhabited long-term research space station. USSRMir4 March 1986First flyby of a comet (Halley's Comet, 8,889 kilometers). USSRVega 1 & Vega 213 March 1986First close up observations of a comet (Halley's Comet, 596 kilometers). ESAGiottoJuly 1988First suspected detection of an exoplanet Gamma Cephei Ab, although the discovery was retracted in 1994, and not confirmed until 2002.

Team of astronomers, led by Bruce Campbell, Gordon Walker, and Stephenson Yang; existence announced by Anthony Lawton & P. Wright in 1989

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Timeline of space exploration - Wikipedia