Better Rotors, Higher Heights Thanks To NASA’s Dual Planet Presence

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Source: Better rotors, higher heights thanks to NASA’s dual-planet presence

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Space research is scientific study carried out in outer space, and by studying outer space. From the use of space technology to the observable universe, space research is a wide research field. Earth science, materials science, biology, medicine, and physics all apply to the space research environment.

The term includes scientific payloads at any altitude from deep space to low Earth orbit, extended to include sounding rocket research in the upper atmosphere, and high-altitude balloons. Chinese rockets were used in ceremony and as weaponry since the 13th century, but no rocket would overcome Earth’s gravity until the latter half of the 20th century.

Space-capable rocketry appeared simultaneously in the work of three scientists, in three separate countries. In Russia, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in the United States, Robert H. Goddard, and in Germany, Hermann Oberth. The United States and the Soviet Union created their own missile programs. The space research field evolved as scientific investigation based on advancing rocket technology.

In 1948–1949 detectors on V-2 rocket flights detected x-rays from the Sun. Sounding rockets helped show us the structure of the upper atmosphere. As higher altitudes were reached, space physics emerged as a field of research with studies of Earths aurorae, ionosphere and magnetosphere.

The first artificial satellite, Russian Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957, four months before the United States first, Explorer 1. The major discovery of satellite research was in 1958, when Explorer 1 detected the Van Allen radiation belts. 

Planetology reached a new stage with the Russian Luna programme, between 1959 and 1976, a series of lunar probes which gave us evidence of the Moons chemical composition, gravity, temperature, soil samples, the first photographs of the far side of the Moon by Luna 3, and the first remotely controlled robots (Lunokhod) to land on another planetary body.

The early space researchers obtained an important international forum with the establishment of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in 1958, which achieved an exchange of scientific information between east and west during the cold war, despite the military origin of the rocket technology underlying the research field. On April 12, 1961, Russian Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit Earth, in Vostok 1.

In 1961, US astronaut Alan Shepard was the first American in space. And on July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first human on the Moon. On April 19, 1971, the Soviet Union launched the Salyut 1, the first space station of substantial duration, a successful 23 day mission, sadly ruined by transport disasters. On May 14, 1973, Skylab, the first American space station launched, on a modified Saturn V rocket. Skylab was occupied for 24 weeks.

486958 Arrokoth is the name of the farthest and most primitive object visited by human spacecraft. Originally designated “1110113Y” when detected by Hubble in 2014, the planetessimal was reached by the New Horizons probe on 1 January 2019 after a week long manoeuvering phase.

New Horizons detected Ultima Thule from 107 million miles and performed a total 9 days of manoeuvres to pass within 3,500 miles of the 19 mile long contact binary. Ultima Thule has an orbital period around 298 years, is 4.1 billion miles from Earth, and over 1 billion miles beyond Pluto.

The Voyager 1 probe launched on 5 September 1977, and flew beyond the edge of our solar system in August 2012 to the interstellar medium. The farthest human object from the Earth, predictions include collision, an Oort cloud, and destiny, “perhaps eternally—to wander the Milky Way.

“Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977 travelling slower than Voyager 1 and reached interstellar medium by the end of 2018. Voyager 2 is the only Earth probe to have visited the ice giants of Neptune or Uranus. Neither Voyager is aimed at a particular visible object, but both continue to send research data to NASA Deep Space Network as of 2019.

Two Pioneer probes and the New Horizons probe are expected to enter interstellar medium in the near future, but these three are expected to have depleted available power before then, so the point of exit cannot be confirmed precisely. Predicting probes speed is imprecise as they pass through the variable heliosphere. Pioneer 10 is roughly at the outer edge of the heliosphere in 2019. New Horizons should reach it by 2040, and Pioneer 11 by 2060.

Two Voyager probes have reached interstellar medium, and three other probes are expected to join that list. Great Observatories program is the flagship NASA telescope program. The Great Observatories program pushes forward our understanding of the universe with detailed observation of the sky, based in gamma rays, ultraviolet, x-ray, infrared, and visible, light spectrums.

The four main telescopes for the Great Observatories program are, Hubble Space Telescope (visible, ultraviolet), launched 1990, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (gamma), launched 1991 and retired 2000, Chandra X-Ray Observatory (x-ray), launched 1999, and Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared), launched 2003.

Origins of the Hubble, named after American astronomer Edwin Hubble, go back as far as 1946. In the present day, the Hubble is used to identify exo-planets and give detailed accounts of events in our own solar system. Hubbles visible-light observations are combined with the other great observatories to give us some of the most detailed images of the visible universe.

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