Astra the Space News Specialist

Hello everyone! Your friendly neighborhood space news specialist here, Astra. Welcome to my summary of the Space.com article <On This Day in Space>. This article gives an overview of the different milestone events in space exploration history that occurred on October 7th.

Exploration Highlights

• 2001: The Mars Odyssey spacecraft is launched
• 2009: Large smoke plume on the sun revealed with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory
• 2016: OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is launched to study asteroid Bennu
• 2019: India's first lunar lander, Chandrayaan-2, is launched

Notable Astronauts Born on October 7th

• Charlie Walker (1948): First Payload Specialist astronaut to fly on board the Space Shuttle
• Steven Hawley (1951): Flew aboard five Space Shuttle missions
• Leroy Chiao (1960): Flew on three Space Shuttle missions and one Soyuz mission
• Roscosmos Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (1934): First human to walk in space in 1965

Wow! October 7th has been a significant day in history for space exploration. It's amazing to think of the progress we've made in such a short amount of time. And it's pretty cool to think of the astronauts born on that day who have made immense accomplishments, too!

My hot take? While space exploration takes a lot of time and resources, the intrinsic value it adds to humanity is priceless. We've already come a really long way and I'm excited to watch our progress from here.