1.
Aeronautics
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Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies the aspects of aeronautical Art, Science and Engineering and the profession of Aeronautics. A significant part of science is a branch of dynamics called aerodynamics, which deals with the motion of air. Attempts to fly without any real aeronautical understanding have been made from the earliest times, typically by constructing wings, wiser investigators sought to gain some rational understanding through the study of bird flight. An early example appears in ancient Egyptian texts, later medieval Islamic scientists also made such studies. The founders of modern aeronautics, Leonardo da Vinci in the Renaissance and Cayley in 1799, man-carrying kites are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China. In 1282 the European explorer Marco Polo described the Chinese techniques then current, the Chinese also constructed small hot air balloons, or lanterns, and rotary-wing toys. The lifting medium for his balloon would be an aether whose composition he did not know, although his designs were rational, they were not based on particularly good science. Many of his designs, such as a four-person screw-type helicopter, have severe flaws and he did at least understand that An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object. His analysis led to the realisation that manpower alone was not sufficient for sustained flight, da Vincis work was lost after his death and did not reappear until it had been overtaken by the work of George Cayley. The modern era of lighter-than-air flight began early in the 17th century with Galileos experiments in which he showed that air has weight and these would be lighter than the displaced air and able to lift an airship. His proposed methods of controlling height are still in use today, by carrying ballast which may be dropped overboard to gain height, in practice de Terzis spheres would have collapsed under air pressure, and further developments had to wait for more practicable lifting gases. From the mid-18th century the Montgolfier brothers in France began experimenting with balloons and their balloons were made of paper, and early experiments using steam as the lifting gas were short-lived due to its effect on the paper as it condensed. Meanwhile, the discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black in c.1780 to propose its use as a lifting gas, on hearing of the Montgolfier Brothers invitation, the French Academy member Jacques Charles offered a similar demonstration of a hydrogen balloon. Charles and two craftsmen, the Robert brothers, developed a material of rubberised silk for the envelope. The hydrogen gas was to be generated by chemical reaction during the filling process, the Montgolfier designs had several shortcomings, not least the need for dry weather and a tendency for sparks from the fire to set light to the paper balloon. The manned design had a gallery around the base of the rather than the hanging basket of the first, unmanned design. On their free flight, De Rozier and dArlandes took buckets of water, on the other hand, the manned design of Charles was essentially modern
2.
Outer space
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Outer space or just space, is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including Earth. The baseline temperature, as set by the radiation from the Big Bang, is 2.7 kelvins. In most galaxies, observations provide evidence that 90% of the mass is in a form, called dark matter. Data indicates that the majority of the mass-energy in the universe is a poorly understood vacuum energy of space which astronomers label dark energy. Intergalactic space takes up most of the volume of the Universe, there is no firm boundary where outer space starts. However the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100 km above sea level, is used as the start of outer space in space treaties. The framework for international law was established by the Outer Space Treaty. This treaty precludes any claims of sovereignty and permits all states to freely explore outer space. Despite the drafting of UN resolutions for the uses of outer space. Humans began the exploration of space during the 20th century with the advent of high-altitude balloon flights. Earth orbit was first achieved by Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union in 1961, due to the high cost of getting into space, manned spaceflight has been limited to low Earth orbit and the Moon. Outer space represents an environment for human exploration because of the dual hazards of vacuum. Microgravity also has an effect on human physiology that causes both muscle atrophy and bone loss. In addition to health and environmental issues, the economic cost of putting objects, including humans. In 350 BCE, Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested that nature abhors a vacuum and this concept built upon a 5th-century BCE ontological argument by the Greek philosopher Parmenides, who denied the possible existence of a void in space. Based on this idea that a vacuum could not exist, in the West it was held for many centuries that space could not be empty. As late as the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes argued that the entirety of space must be filled, in ancient China, there were various schools of thought concerning the nature of the heavens, some of which bear a resemblance to the modern understanding. In the 2nd century, astronomer Zhang Heng became convinced that space must be infinite, extending well beyond the mechanism that supported the Sun, the surviving books of the Hsüan Yeh school said that the heavens were boundless, empty and void of substance
3.
Aircraft
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An aircraft is a machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the lift of an airfoil. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation, crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as type, aircraft propulsion, usage. Each of the two World Wars led to technical advances. Consequently, the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras, Pioneers of flight, first World War,1914 to 1918. Aviation between the World Wars,1918 to 1939, Second World War,1939 to 1945. Postwar era, also called the jet age,1945 to the present day, aerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large gasbags or canopies, filled with a relatively low-density gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, a balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs – usually fixed-wing. In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to ships of the air, in the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as ships of the air or flying-ships. – though none had yet been built, the advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by an outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced. There were still no fixed-wing aircraft or non-rigid balloons large enough to be called airships, then several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a balloon is an aerostat and an airship is a powered one. A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible, sometimes this term is applied only to non-rigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship. Non-rigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back and these soon became known as blimps. During the Second World War, this shape was adopted for tethered balloons, in windy weather
4.
Spacecraft
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A spacecraft is a vehicle, or machine designed to fly in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, on a sub-orbital spaceflight, a spacecraft enters space and then returns to the surface, without having gone into an orbit. For orbital spaceflights, spacecraft enter closed orbits around the Earth or around other celestial bodies, robotic spacecraft used to support scientific research are space probes. Robotic spacecraft that remain in orbit around a body are artificial satellites. Only a handful of interstellar probes, such as Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, orbital spacecraft may be recoverable or not. By method of reentry to Earth they may be divided in non-winged space capsules, Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, the launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments, while the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age. Apart from its value as a technological first, Sputnik 1 also helped to identify the upper atmospheric layers density and it also provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Pressurized nitrogen in the satellites false body provided the first opportunity for meteoroid detection, Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No. 1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR. The satellite travelled at 29,000 kilometers per hour, taking 96.2 minutes to complete an orbit and this altitude is called the Kármán line. In particular, in the 1940s there were several test launches of the V-2 rocket, as of 2016, only three nations have flown manned spacecraft, USSR/Russia, USA, and China. The first manned spacecraft was Vostok 1, which carried Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, there were five other manned missions which used a Vostok spacecraft. The second manned spacecraft was named Freedom 7, and it performed a sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961 carrying American astronaut Alan Shepard to an altitude of just over 187 kilometers, there were five other manned missions using Mercury spacecraft. Other Soviet manned spacecraft include the Voskhod, Soyuz, flown unmanned as Zond/L1, L3, TKS, China developed, but did not fly Shuguang, and is currently using Shenzhou. Except for the shuttle, all of the recoverable manned orbital spacecraft were space capsules. Manned space capsules The International Space Station, manned since November 2000, is a joint venture between Russia, the United States, Canada and several other countries, some reusable vehicles have been designed only for manned spaceflight, and these are often called spaceplanes. The first example of such was the North American X-15 spaceplane, the first reusable spacecraft, the X-15, was air-launched on a suborbital trajectory on July 19,1963. The first partially reusable spacecraft, a winged non-capsule, the Space Shuttle, was launched by the USA on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarins flight
5.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
6.
European Space Agency
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The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states, dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of about 2,000. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching, after World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States. The meeting was attended by representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey. The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned with developing a system, ELDO, and the precursor of the European Space Agency. The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962, from 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites. ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, ESA has 10 founding member states, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These signed the ESA Convention in 1975 and deposited the instruments of ratification by 1980, during this interval the agency functioned in a de facto fashion. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, ESA joined NASA in the IUE, the worlds first high-orbit telescope, which was launched in 1978 and operated very successfully for 18 years. A number of successful Earth-orbit projects followed, and in 1986 ESA began Giotto, its first deep-space mission, to study the comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup. Hipparcos, a mission, was launched in 1989 and in the 1990s SOHO, Ulysses. Recent scientific missions in co-operation with NASA include the Cassini–Huygens space probe, as the successor of ELDO, ESA has also constructed rockets for scientific and commercial payloads. Ariane 1, launched in 1979, brought mostly commercial payloads into orbit from 1984 onward, the successor launch vehicle of Ariane 5, the Ariane 6 is already in the definition stage and is envisioned to enter service in the 2020s. The beginning of the new millennium saw ESA become, along with agencies like NASA, JAXA, ISRO, CSA and Roscosmos, one of the major participants in scientific space research. Although ESA had relied on co-operation with NASA in previous decades, especially the 1990s, changed circumstances led to decisions to rely more on itself, a 2011 press issue thus stated, Russia is ESAs first partner in its efforts to ensure long-term access to space. ESA maintains its scientific and research projects mainly for astronomy-space missions such as Corot, launched on 27 December 2006 and this is the reason space exploration is an integral part of overall space activities. It has always been so, and it will be more important in the future. ESA describes its work in two overlapping ways, For the general public the various fields of work are described as Activities, Member states participate to varying degrees in the mandatory and optional space programmes
7.
Canadian Space Agency
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The Canadian Space Agency was established by the Canadian Space Agency Act which received Royal Assent on May 10,1990. The agency reports to the federal Minister of Innovation, Science, the current president of the Canadian Space Agency is Sylvain Laporte, who took the position March 9,2015 following the announcement of his appointment on February 27,2015. The headquarters of the CSA is located at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in Longueuil, the agency also has offices in Ottawa, Ontario, at the David Florida Laboratory, and small liaison offices in Houston, Washington, D. C. and Paris. The origins of the Canadian upper atmosphere and space program can be traced back to the end of the Second World War and this work would soon lead to the development of Canadas first satellite known as Alouette 1. With the launch of Alouette 1 in September 1962 Canada became the country to put an artificial satellite into space. This undertaking was designated an International Milestone of Electrical Engineering by IEEE in 1993, the launch of Anik A-1 in 1972 made Canada the first country in the world to establish its own domestic geostationary communication satellite network. These and other related activities in the 1980s compelled the Canadian government to promulgate the Canadian Space Agency Act which established the Canadian Space Agency. The Act received royal assent on May 10,1990 and came into force on December 14,1990, in 1999 the CSA was moved from project based to A-base funding and given a fixed annual budget of $300 Million. The actual budget varies from year to year due to additional earmarks, the Canadian Space Agencys mission statement says that the agency is committed to leading the development and application of space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and humanity. Canadas collaboration with Europe in space activities predated both the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, Canada is allowed to participate in optional programs, it also has to contribute to the General Budget but not as much as associate membership would have entailed. This status was unique at the time and remains so today, on 15 December 2010 the accord was renewed for a further 10 years, until 2020. By virtue of this accord, Canada takes part in ESA deliberative bodies and decision-making, Canadian firms can bid for and receive contracts to work on programmes. The accord has a provision ensuring a fair industrial return to Canada. The head of the Canadian delegation to ESA is the president of the Canadian Space Agency, as of February 2009, there are currently 30 Canadians that are employed as staff members at ESA. The Canadian Space Program is administered by the Canadian Space Agency, Canada has contributed technology, expertise and personnel to the world space effort, especially in collaboration with ESA and NASA. The Canadarm and Canadarm2 employ the Advanced Space Vision System which allows efficient use of the robotic arms. Another Canadian technology of note is the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, there have been four recruiting campaigns for astronauts for the CSA. The first, in 1983, led to the selection of Roberta Bondar, Marc Garneau, Robert Thirsk, Ken Money, Bjarni Tryggvason, the second, in 1992, selected Chris Hadfield, Julie Payette, Dafydd Williams and Michael McKay
8.
Indian Space Research Organisation
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The Indian Space Research Organisation is the space agency of the Government of India headquartered in the city of Bengaluru. Its vision is to space technology for national development, while pursuing space science research. The establishment of ISRO thus institutionalised space activities in India and it is managed by the Department of Space, which reports to the Prime Minister of The Republic of India. ISRO built Indias first satellite, Aryabhata, which was launched by the Soviet Union on 19 April 1975 and it was named after the Mathematician Aryabhata. In 1980, Rohini became the first satellite to be placed in orbit by an Indian-made launch vehicle and these rockets have launched numerous communications satellites and earth observation satellites. Satellite navigation systems like GAGAN and IRNSS have been deployed, in January 2014, ISRO successfully used an indigenous cryogenic engine in a GSLV-D5 launch of the GSAT-14. On 18 June 2016 ISRO successfully set a record with a launch of 20 satellites in a single payload, on 15 February 2017, ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single rocket and created a world record. Raman and Meghnad Saha contributed to scientific principles applicable in space sciences, however, it was the period after 1945 which saw important developments being made in coordinated space research in India. Studies were carried out at research laboratories, universities, and independent locations, in 1950, the Department of Atomic Energy was founded with Homi Bhabha as its secretary. The Department provided funding for research throughout India. During this time, tests continued on aspects of meteorology and the Earths magnetic field, in 1954, the Uttar Pradesh state observatory was established at the foothills of the Himalayas. The Rangpur Observatory was set up in 1957 at Osmania University, Space research was further encouraged by the technically inclined Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik and opened up possibilities for the rest of the world to conduct a space launch, the Indian National Committee for Space Research was set up in 1962 by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first Prime Minister. The prime objective of ISRO is to space technology and its application to various national tasks. The Indian space programme was driven by the vision of Vikram Sarabhai, in 2008 India launched as many as 11 satellites, including nine from other countries and went on to become the first nation to launch 10 satellites on one rocket. ISRO has successfully put into two major satellite systems, Indian National Satellites for communication services and Indian Remote Sensing satellites for management of natural resources. In July 2012, the former President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said that research was being done by ISRO, ISRO is managed by the Department of Space of the Government of India. Development and Educational Communication Unit, Ahmedabad, ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network, Bangalore
9.
JAXA
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is Japans national aero-space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003 and its motto is One JAXA and its corporate slogan is Explore to Realize. Before the merger, ISAS was responsible for space and planetary research, NASDA, which was founded on 1 October 1969, had developed rockets, satellites, and also built the Japanese Experiment Module. The old NASDA headquarters were located at the current site of the Tanegashima Space Center, NASDA also trained Japanese astronauts, who flew with the US Space Shuttles. In 2012, new legislation extended JAXAs remit from peaceful purposes only to some military space development. Political control of JAXA passed from MEXT to the Prime Ministers Cabinet Office through a new Space Strategy Office, JAXA is composed of the following organizations. Its headquarters are in Chōfu, Tokyo and it also has Earth Observation Research Center, Tokyo Earth Observation Center in Hatoyama, Saitama Noshiro Testing Center in Noshiro, Akita – Established in 1962. It carries out development and testing of rocket engines, sanriku Balloon Center – Balloons have been launched from this site since 1971. Kakuda Space Center in Kakuda, Miyagi – Leads the development of rocket engines, works mainly with development of liquid fuel engines. Sagamihara Campus – Development of experimental equipment for rockets and satellites, Tanegashima Space Center - currently the launch site for the H-IIA and H-IIB rockets. This is the center of Japans space network and it is involved in research and development of satellites and rockets, and tracking and controlling of satellites. It develops experimental equipment for the Japanese Experiment Module, training of astronauts also takes place here. For International Space Station operations, the Japanese Flight Control Team is located at the Space Station Integration & Promotion Center in Tsukuba, SSIPC communicates regularly with ISS crewmembers via S-band audio. Uchinoura Space Center - currently the site for the Epsilon rocket. JAXA uses the H-IIA rocket from the former NASDA body and its variant H-IIB to launch engineering test satellites, weather satellites, for science missions like X-ray astronomy, JAXA uses the Epsilon rocket. For experiments in the upper atmosphere JAXA uses the SS-520, S-520, prior to the establishment of JAXA, ISAS had been most successful in its space program in the field of X-ray astronomy during the 1980s and 1990s. Another successful area for Japan has been Very Long Baseline Interferometry with the HALCA mission, additional success was achieved with solar observation and research of the magnetosphere, among other areas. NASDA was mostly active in the field of satellite technology
10.
Roscosmos
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The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, commonly known as Roscosmos, is the governmental body responsible for the space science program of Russia and general aerospace research. The Corporation was established on the basis of the now-defunct Federal Space Agency on December 28,2015, Roscosmos was previously known as the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. The headquarters of Roscosmos are located in Moscow, while the main Mission Control space center is located in the city of Korolev. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center is in Star City, the Launch facilities used are Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and Vostochny Cosmodrome being built in the Russian Far East in Amur Oblast. The current Director since January 2015 is Igor Komarov, in 2015 the Russian government merged Roscosmos with the United Rocket and Space Corporation, the re-nationalized Russian space industry, to create the Roscosmos State Corporation. The Soviet space program did not have central executive agencies, instead, its organizational architecture was multi-centered, it was the design bureaus and the council of designers that had the most say, not the political leadership. The creation of a central agency after the separation of Russia from the Soviet Union was therefore a new development, Russian Space Agency was formed on February 25,1992, by a decree of President Yeltsin. Yuri Koptev, who had worked with designing Mars landers at NPO Lavochkin. In the early years, the agency suffered from lack of authority as the design bureaus fought to protect their own spheres of operation. For example, the decision to keep Mir in operation beyond 1999 was not taken by the agency, instead, another example is that the decision to develop the new Angara rocket was rather a function of Khrunichevs ability to attract resources than a conscious long-term decision by the agency. The 1990s saw serious financial problems because of decreased cash flow and this resulted in Roscosmos leading role in commercial satellite launches and space tourism. In March 2004, director Yuri Koptev was replaced by Anatoly Perminov, the Russian economy boomed throughout 2005 from high prices for exports, such as oil and gas, the outlook for future funding in 2006 appeared more favorable. The budget for 2006 was as high as 25 billion rubles, under the current 10-year budget approved, the budget of the Space Agency shall increase 5–10% per year, providing the space agency with a constant influx of money. In addition to the budget, Roscosmos plans to have over 130 billion rubles flowing into its budget by other means, such as industry investments and it is around the time US-based The Planetary Society entered a partnership with Roscosmos. In 2011, the government spent 115 billion rubles in the space programs. The proposed project core budget for 2013 to be around 128.3 billion rubles, the budget for the whole space program is,169.8 billion rubles. By 2015, the amount of the budget can be increased to 199.2 billion rubles, priorities of the Russian space program include the new Angara rocket family and development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing spacecraft. The GLONASS global navigation system has for many years been one of the top priorities and has been given its own budget line in the federal space budget
11.
China National Space Administration
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The China National Space Administration is the national space agency of the Peoples Republic of China. It is responsible for the space program and for planning. CNSA and China Aerospace Corporation assumed the authority over space development efforts previously held by the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. It is an agency of the State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, itself a subordinate agency of the Ministry of Industry. The headquarters are in Haidian District, Beijing, CNSA is a new agency created in 1993 when the Ministry of Aerospace Industry was split into CNSA and the China Aerospace Corporation. The former was to be responsible for policy, while the latter was to be responsible for execution and this arrangement proved somewhat unsatisfactory, as these two agencies were, in effect, one large agency, sharing both personnel and management. As part of a restructuring in 1998, CASC was split into a number of smaller state-owned companies. CNSA was established as a government institution to develop and fulfill Chinas due international obligations, the Ninth NPC assigned CNSA as an internal structure of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Significant achievements have been scored in the bilateral and multilateral and technology exchanges, administrators of CNSA are appointed by the State Council. As of 2013, ten Chinese nationals have traveled in space, Wang Yaping Zhang Xiaoguang The current administrator is Xu Dazhe, wu Yanhua is vice-administrator and Tian Yulong is secretary general. The arrow in the middle is similar to the Chinese character 人 which means human or people, the three concentric ellipses stand for three types of Escape Velocity which are milestones of space exploration. The second ring is drawn with a line, to state that China has passed the first stage of exploration and is undergoing the second stage exploration. The 人 character stands above the three rings to emphasize humanitys capability to escape and explore, olive branches were added to state that Chinas space exploration is peaceful in nature. Chinese space program Chinese Lunar Exploration Program List of space agencies Official website
12.
Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission
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The Astronomy and Astrophysics program, is an active scientific mission of the Space Research Commission, dedicated for the development of space science. The program is promoted in the public circles through an academic bulletin which was launched on 2 January 2012 by Suparco and this program is mainly focused on theoretical and observational research while collaborating with major space agencies in the world. The genesis of this program traced back to 2009 after Suparco publicly celebrated the International Year of Astronomy which was appreciated by the public. Since then, Suparco managed and helds the World Space Week events, on monthly basis, Suparco through its bulletin covers the research events and book reviews as well as work being carried out at SUPARCO under this program. In January 2012, the program was launched its publishing its first publication in its bulletin, the first publication under this program included the research on upper atmosphere, software development relating the space technology, Lunar theory, Lunar eclipse Quadrantids and the asteroids. Since its establishment, a total of nine important publications has been released under the auspicious of this program with the last volume was issued in September 2012
