Rocket launches in1960

The USA opens the decade with a rush of reconnaissance and science missions — Thor flies Discoverer reconnaissance satellites in most months, parachuting their exposed film back from orbit for mid-air recovery, and a Delta in August places Echo 1A, the first passive communications satellite, into orbit. The Soviet Union flies five Vostok precursor missions and recovers a capsule with the dogs Belka and Strelka in August — proving the hardware that will carry a human the following spring.