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India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big. Environment Planet Possible India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big Grassroots efforts are bringing solar panels to rural villages without electricity, while massive solar arrays are being built across the country. Go Further. Animals Climate change is shrinking many Amazonian birds. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city.
Animals This frog mysteriously re-evolved a full set of teeth. Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. Animals Wild Cities Morocco has 3 million stray dogs. Meet the people trying to help. Environment COP26 nears conclusion with mixed signals and frustration. The shuttle also underwent upgrades as technology advanced. Space shuttle Columbia's final mission ended in disaster.
The shuttle and seven-member crew were lost over Texas when Columbia burned up during reentry on Feb 1, Columbia's loss prompted NASA to do extra safety checks in orbit for all future missions.
Discussions on developing a reusable spacecraft began in earnest in , when NASA was looking to figure out what programs would come after Apollo. Work resumed more seriously when the first landing on the moon was imminent, in However, according to NASA history documents, when NASA submitted its September budget to the White House, it became clear that the Nixon administration and Congress would not support the development of a space station and space shuttle at the same time.
So NASA was forced to rethink its expectations and make some changes to reduce costs. Some compromises were made in the design in response to budgetary constraints and input from the military, which was expected to be a major customer of the shuttle. For example, the size of the cargo bay was increased to accommodate large military satellites.
Also, it was decided to make the shuttle only partially reusable instead of fully reusable to save on development costs, although critics noted this would increase the costs of individual flights according to NASA history documents. Construction began on a prototype on Jun. That spacecraft was designated Enterprise. Its purpose was to perform test flights and landings, space shuttle Enterprise never flew into outer space.
Construction on space shuttle Columbia began on Mar. The space shuttle Columbia was named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe and also the command module for the Apollo 11 moon landing according to NASA. Lovell, Jr. Anders-for a historic mission to orbit the Moon. At first it was planned as a mission to test Apollo hardware in the relatively safe confines of low Earth orbit, but senior engineer George M. The advantages of this could be important, both in technical and scientific knowledge gained as well as in a public demonstration of what the U.
In the summer of Low broached the idea to Phillips, who then carried it to the administrator, and in Nov. After Apollo 8 made one and a half Earth orbits its third stage began a burn to put the spacecraft on a lunar trajectory.
As it traveled outward the crew focused a portable television camera on Earth and for the first time humanity saw its home from afar, a tiny, lovely, and fragile "blue marble" hanging in the blackness of space. When it arrived at the Moon on Christmas Eve this image of Earth was even more strongly reinforced when the crew sent images of the planet back while reading the first part of the Bible-"God created the heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was without form and void"-before sending Christmas greetings to humanity.
The next day they fired the boosters for a return flight and "splashed down" in the Pacific Ocean on 27 Dec. It was an enormously significant accomplishment coming at a time when American society was in crisis over Vietnam, race relations, urban problems, and a host of other difficulties. And if only for a few moments the nation united as one to focus on this epochal event. Two more Apollo missions occurred before the climax of the program, but they did little more than confirm that the time had come for a lunar landing.
They take the Lunar Module LM for a test run within 10 miles of the lunar surface. At p. EST on 20 Jul. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin-landed on the lunar surface while Michael Collins orbited overhead in the Apollo command module. After checkout, Armstrong set foot on the surface, telling the millions of listeners that it was "one small step for man-one giant leap for mankind. After more than 21 hours on the lunar surface, they returned to Collins on board "Columbia," bringing We came in Peace For All Mankind.
Chartered on 13 Feb. Agnew, this group met throughout the spring and summer to plot a course for the space program. The politics of this effort was intense. NASA lobbied hard with the Group and especially its chair for a far-reaching post-Apollo space program that included development of a space station, a reusable Space Shuttle, a Moon base, and a human expedition to Mars. Instead, he was silent on the future of the U.
They landed near the Surveyor 3 landing sight on 18 Nov. They spend 7. The program yielded a wealth of information on thermal stress, aerodynamics, the high-altitude environment, propulsion including mixed compression inlet research , precision measurement of gust velocity, and flight control systems that will still be useful for designing future vehicles that will fly at three times the speed of sound or faster.
It complemented the X program in that it yielded information about sustained flight at Mach 3, whereas the much faster X could only fly for comparatively short periods of time.
At 56 hours into the flight, an oxygen tank in the Apollo service module ruptured and damaged several of the power, electrical, and life support systems. People throughout the world watched and waited and hoped as NASA personnel on the ground and the crew, well on their way to the Moon and with no way of returning until they went around it, worked together to find a way safely home.
While NASA engineers quickly determined that sufficient air, water, and electricity did not exist in the Apollo capsule to sustain the three astronauts until they could return to Earth, they found that the LM-a self-contained spacecraft unaffected by the accident-could be used as a "lifeboat" to provide austere life support for the return trip. It was a close-run thing, but the crew returned safely on 17 Apr.
The near disaster served several important purposes for the civil space program-especially prompting reconsideration of the propriety of the whole effort while also solidifying in the popular mind NASA's technological genius. They perform nine hours of moonwalks and brought back 98 pounds of lunar material. The concept is now widely used on commercial and military aircraft throughout the world. They brought back pounds of moon rocks, including one of the prize artifacts of the Apollo program, a sample of ancient lunar crust called the "Genesis Rock.
Fletcher met with President Richard M. Nixon at the "Western White House" in San Clemente, California, to discuss the future of the space program and then issued a statement to the media announcing the decision to "proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system designed to help transform the space frontier of the s into familiar territory, easily accessible for human endeavor in the s and '90s.
The first of these was launched on 3 Mar. In , NASA launched Pioneer 11 , providing scientists with their closest view of Jupiter, from 26, miles above the cloud tops in Dec.
Young and Duke spend 3 days with the lunar rover near the Descartes crater 25 May NASA research pilot Gary Krier flew an F-8C modified with an all-electric, digital-fly-by-wire flight control system, kicking off the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire DFBW program that demonstrated its effectiveness by operating the aircraft without a mechanical back-up system.
More advanced versions of DFBW were also used in the flight control systems of both the X and X research aircraft, which would have been uncontrollable without them. Two more Landsat vehicles were launched in Jan. Landsat 4 , launched 16 Jul. Ronald Evans piloted the CM. This crew carried a parasol, tools, and replacement film to repair the orbital workshop. After substantial repairs requiring extravehicular activity EVA , including deployment of a parasol sunshade that cooled the inside temperatures to 75 degrees Fahrenheit on 4 Jun.
During a 7 Jun. EVA the crew freed the jammed solar array and increased power to the workshop. In orbit the crew conducted solar astronomy and Earth resources experiments, medical studies, and five student experiments. This crew made orbits and carried out experiments for hours, in the process making three EVAs totalling six hours and 20 minutes. The first group of astronauts returned to Earth on 22 Jun.
The first of these, Skylab 3 , was launched using Apollo hardware on 28 Jul. Skylab 4 , the last mission on the workshop was launched on 16 Nov. At the conclusion of Skylab 4 the orbital workshop was powered down for four years. It also sent back the first polar images of the planet. Because of the successful earlier Pioneer 10 mission, NASA was able to attempt a somewhat more risky approach with this space probe, a clockwise trajectory by the south polar region and then straight back up through the intense inner radiation belt by the equator and back out over Jupiter's north pole.
Pioneer 11 closed to its closest point with Jupiter on 3 December, coming within 42, km of the surface at a speed of , kph. This mission gathered data on the planet's magnetic field, measured distributions of high-energy electrons and protons in the radiation belts; measured planetary geophysical characteristics, and studied gravity and atmosphere.
It then headed on toward a September encounter with Saturn and eventual departure from the Solar System. It was specifically designed to test the compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems for American and Soviet spacecraft, and to open the way for international space rescue as well as future joint missions. To carry out this mission existing American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft were used.
The Apollo spacecraft was nearly identical to the one that orbited the Moon and later carried astronauts to Skylab, while the Soyuz craft was the primary Soviet vehicle used for cosmonaut flight since its introduction in A universal docking module was designed and constructed by NASA to serve as an airlock and transfer corridor between the two craft.
Astronauts Tom Stafford, Vance D. Brand, and Donald K. Slayton took off from Kennedy Space Center on 15 Jul. The two spacecraft remained docked for 44 hours, separated, then redocked, separating finally a few hours later. After separation, the Apollo vehicle remained in space an additional six days while Soyuz returned to Earth approximately 43 hours after separation.
The flight was more a symbol of the lessening of tensions between the two superpowers than a significant scientific endeavor, a sharp contrast with the competition for international prestige that had fueled much of the space activities of both nations since the late s.
This was the last Apollo spacecraft to be flown. Lasting from to , the lifting-body program included the M2-F1, M2-F2, M2-F3, HL, XA, and XB wingless lifting vehicles and served as a precursor not only to the Space Shuttle but to the X technology demonstrator for next-generation reusable space vehicles and the X prototype for a crew return vehicle from the international space station.
The probe landed on 20 Jul. Viking 2 was launched for Mars on 9 Nov. The Viking project's primary mission ended on 15 Nov. Its last transmission reached Earth on 11 Nov.
The Enterprise also made its first free flight test at Dryden on 12 August The captive and free-flight tests demonstrated that the Shuttle could fly attached to the , which has served since as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft to ferry the Orbiters from Dryden, where they landed for many years, to NASA's launch location at the Kennedy Space Center.
The free-flight tests demonstrated that the Shuttle could glide to a landing on a runway, and the last landing uncovered a time delay problem with the Shuttle's flight control system that was corrected in a research program using NASA's F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire aircraft between and On Feb. In Jul. The spacecraft then traveled on to Saturn and in Jul.
A critical part of this encounter took place on 26 Aug. This was corrected and Voyager 2 remained responsive to Earth-bound controller. Not so Voyager 1. It went up over the Saturn's orbital plane, never to be seen again. In Sep. As the mission progressed, with the successful achievement of all its objectives at Jupiter and Saturn in Dec.
In Jan. Eventually, between them, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 explored all the giant outer planets, 48 of their moons, and the unique systems of rings and magnetic fields those planets possess. Our understanding of Earth's atmosphere was forever changed by this little object. Once Explorer 1 made it into space, it began collecting information on the cosmic rays there. Some of the readings transmitted from Explorer 1 showed cosmic ray activity that was significantly lower than scientists expected.
Physicist James Van Allen hypothesized that the cause of the anomaly was essentially an interference with the satellite's cosmic ray detector. He believed Explorer 1 had passed through a hitherto-unknown radiation belt that had oversaturated the on-board instruments with charged particles.
Another satellite, sent into orbit two months later, delivered data that backed up Van Allen's theory, and the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth entered the science books. Explorer 1 dipped into Earth's atmosphere and burned up in March , after orbiting Earth 58, times. A satellite launched 20 years later revealed insights that went far beyond science books.
The payload on this satellite would deliver high-resolution images of space into our homes. Before , our view of space mostly came from ground-based light telescopes.
The images were interesting, but not very clear, and the optics couldn't see far enough to give us the views astronomers craved. Earth's atmosphere, with all its clouds, water and gas vapors, tends to distort extraterrestrial light, so it's not terribly conducive to capturing clear images.
The solution? Put telescopes on the other side of Earth's atmosphere, where the light would travel to distant objects and bounce back unhindered.
It wasn't the first space telescope, but the HST has proved to be one of the most scientifically important objects ever built. Named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, this telescope's made more than 1.
Today it's still providing mankind with clear, mesmerizing images of our universe. What's more, the HST is always facilitating new discoveries.
Upwards of 15, scientific papers have drawn on data the telescope provided [source: NASA ]. Originally, the satellite was supposed to launch in , but construction delays and political fallout from the Challenger disaster kept it grounded until , when the Hubble finally went into orbit [source: Okolski].
The Hubble Space Telescope lets us watch the expansion of the universe in a way never before imagined. Not only does it have 10 to 20 times the resolution of a typical ground-based telescope, but a technological milestone made its images accessible to scientists and the general public alike.
With the advent of the Internet, people could sit at home and watch the universe unfold in all hi-resolution, full-color glory. Hubble revealed the world, going out billions of light years from Earth, to anyone who cared to see it. Today, the Hubble works in concert with other great NASA observatories to broaden our cosmic knowledge.
Before the turn of the millennium, the administration sent up another space telescope, one that uses X-rays instead of visible light to capture breathtaking images of the universe.
This contraption could see things no one had ever seen before, such as the split second when space particles disappear into a black hole.
X-ray telescopes are different than the more commonplace optical telescopes we're all familiar with. Instead of relying on visible light to form an image, the Chandra X-ray Observatory uses higher-energy particles, namely X-rays. Due to our planet's shield-like atmosphere, X-rays that originate from other parts of the universe cannot be observed down here on Earth. Instead, scientists have to document these via specialized telescopes that've been sent into space. Orbiting the Earth at times the altitude of Hubble , Chandra is 25 times more sensitive than any previous X-ray telescope [source: Harvard-Smithsonian ].
Up there, it focuses on high-energy portions of the universe. The Chandra X-ray observatory has so far delivered clear images of supernova remnants, quasars, exploding stars and supermassive black holes while helping us probe the mysteries of dark matter. With the insights it's provided into the life and death of stars, Chandra will enhance our understanding of the origins of the universe.
It could also help us assess the habitability of distant planets. Speaking of life itself, how about the kind that might exist on other planets? Next on our list of NASA successes is Juno, a space probe that is getting us better acquainted with the gas giant Jupiter. Upon making it across, the spacecraft again broke new ground when it took the unprecedented step of observing a so-called outer planet — in this case, Jupiter [source: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics ].
Now another probe is checking out the gas giant. The probe finally reached the colossal planet on July, 4, En route, Juno set a new spacefaring record. A trio of foot 9 meter solar arrays power this magnificent craft. On Jan. No other solar-powered spacecraft has ever traveled such a great distance [source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory ]. The probe is currently orbiting the gas giant in an elliptical fashion, taking a route that brings it within about 2, miles 4, kilometers of the tops of Jupiter's clouds.
Juno has made some mind-boggling discoveries so far. For example, thanks to data it's collected, we now know that Jupiter's iconic bands aren't just surface-level decorations; the jet streams that drive them can run at least 1, miles 3, kilometers deep [source: Georgiou ]. Another spacecraft, launched two years before Pioneer 10, did something even more compelling.
Instead of navigating the asteroid belt or interrogating Jupiter, it saved a human crew that could've been forever lost in space. Apollo 13 was headed for the moon. On April 11, , the spacecraft lifted off. Fifty-five hours and 55 minutes later, an explosion shut down almost every system necessary to sustain life onboard. The string of events leading to the explosion began in , with an oversight involving the oxygen tank thermostats. Tank No.
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