Unmanned Space Missions (An Explorer's Guide to the Universe)
Language: English
Pages: 209
ISBN: 161530018X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
There are an estimated 900 functioning satellites orbiting Earth, collecting data and investigating the solar system. Readers will learn about unmanned spaceflight, from the former Soviet Union?s Sputnik of the 1950?s to modern-day rockets and the Hubble Space Telescope. Includes black-and-white photographs, scientific data, appendices, glossary, further reading, and index. 208 pages.
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mission on July 23, 1999. A new privately developed family is Falcon, which consists of two launch vehicles, Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, built by the U.S. corporation SpaceX with funding from South African-born American entrepreneur Elon Musk. Falcon 1 was designed to place a 420-kg (925-pound) payload into orbit at a lower cost than that of other launch vehicles, in part by using a recoverable first stage. Falcon 9 was designed to compete with the Delta family of launchers in that it was planned to
(28–100 miles), between the maximum altitude of balloons and the minimum altitude of orbiting satellites. They can be singlestage or multistage vehicles and are launched nearly vertically. After all the rocket stages have expended their fuel and have dropped away, the payload section continues to coast upward, slowly losing speed because of gravity. Upward velocity drops to zero at peak altitude, and the payload then begins to fall. Typically, the payload is retrieved by parachute and flown
bodies—and of trace elements such as uranium and potassium. Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope The U.S. Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, launched June 11, 2008, was designed to study gamma-ray-emitting sources. These sources are the universe’s most violent and energetic objects and include gamma-ray bursts, pulsars, and high-speed jets emitted by black holes. NASA is the lead agency, with contributions from France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Sweden. Fermi carries two instruments, the Large Area
next maximum. In monitoring the corona, SOHO caught a surprisingly large number of comets (one every few weeks) diving into the sun. More than 1,600 comets have been found in SOHO images, making it the top “discoverer” of comets of all time. After an incorrect command on June 25, 1998, caused SOHO to spin out of control, the space craft was slowly nursed back to life. In December 2000—when the sun was at its most active—SOHO undertook solar wind studies in coordination with Ulysses, which was
March 5, 1979, and then headed for Saturn, which it reached on Nov. 12, 1980. It then adopted a trajectory to take it out of the solar system. Voyager 2 traveled more slowly and on a longer trajectory than its partner. It sped by Jupiter on July 9, 1979, and passed Saturn on Aug. 25, 1981. It then flew past Uranus on Jan. 24, 1986, and Neptune on Aug. 25, 1989, before being hurled toward interstellar space. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune. Science in Space |
