1.
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
2.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in La Cañada Flintridge, California and Pasadena, California, United States. The JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology for NASA, the laboratorys primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASAs Deep Space Network and they are also responsible for managing the JPL Small-Body Database, and provides physical data and lists of publications for all known small Solar System bodies. The JPLs Space Flight Operations Facility and Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator are designated National Historic Landmarks, JPL traces its beginnings to 1936 in the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology when the first set of rocket experiments were carried out in the Arroyo Seco. Malinas thesis advisor was engineer/aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán, who arranged for U. S. Army financial support for this GALCIT Rocket Project in 1939. In 1941, Malina, Parsons, Forman, Martin Summerfield, in 1943, von Kármán, Malina, Parsons, and Forman established the Aerojet Corporation to manufacture JATO motors. The project took on the name Jet Propulsion Laboratory in November 1943, during JPLs Army years, the laboratory developed two deployed weapon systems, the MGM-5 Corporal and MGM-29 Sergeant intermediate range ballistic missiles. These missiles were the first US ballistic missiles developed at JPL and it also developed a number of other weapons system prototypes, such as the Loki anti-aircraft missile system, and the forerunner of the Aerobee sounding rocket. At various times, it carried out testing at the White Sands Proving Ground, Edwards Air Force Base. A lunar lander was developed in 1938-39 which influenced design of the Apollo Lunar Module in the 1960s. The team lost that proposal to Project Vanguard, and instead embarked on a project to demonstrate ablative re-entry technology using a Jupiter-C rocket. They carried out three successful flights in 1956 and 1957. Using a spare Juno I, the two organizations then launched the United States first satellite, Explorer 1, on February 1,1958, JPL was transferred to NASA in December 1958, becoming the agencys primary planetary spacecraft center. JPL engineers designed and operated Ranger and Surveyor missions to the Moon that prepared the way for Apollo, JPL also led the way in interplanetary exploration with the Mariner missions to Venus, Mars, and Mercury. In 1998, JPL opened the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA, as of 2013, it has found 95% of asteroids that are a kilometer or more in diameter that cross Earths orbit. JPL was early to employ women mathematicians, in the 1940s and 1950s, using mechanical calculators, women in an all-female computations group performed trajectory calculations. In 1961, JPL hired Dana Ulery as their first woman engineer to work alongside male engineers as part of the Ranger and Mariner mission tracking teams, when founded, JPLs site was a rocky flood-plain just outside the city limits of Pasadena. Almost all of the 177 acres of the U. S, the city of La Cañada Flintridge, California was incorporated in 1976, well after JPL attained international recognition with a Pasadena address
3.
Orbital Sciences Corporation
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It was headquartered in Dulles, Virginia and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol OA. Orbital also provided satellite subsystems and space-related technical services to government agencies and laboratories, on April 29,2014, Orbital Sciences announced that it would merge with Alliant Techsystems to create a new company called Orbital ATK, Inc. The merger was completed on February 9,2015 and Orbital Sciences ceased to exist as an independent entity, Orbital was founded and incorporated in 1982 by three friends who had met earlier while at Harvard Business School—David W. Thompson, Bruce Ferguson and Scott Webster. In 1985, Orbital procured its first contract for providing up to four Transfer Orbital Stage vehicles to NASA, in 1987, the seeds for the ORBCOMM constellation were planted when Orbital began investigating a system using Low Earth orbit satellites to collect data from remote locations. In 1988, Orbital acquired Space Data Corporation in Arizona- one of the leading suppliers of suborbital rockets- thereby broadening its rocket business. This was followed by the opening of a new facility in Chandler, in 1990, the company successfully carried out eight space missions, highlighted by the initial launch of the Pegasus rocket, the worlds first privately developed space launch vehicle. Shortly following the successful Pegasus launch, Orbital conducted an IPO in 1990, in 1993, Orbital established its current headquarters in Dulles, Virginia followed by the acquisition of Fairchild Space and Defense Corporation in 1994. In the same year, Orbital successfully conducted the launch of the Taurus rocket. In the early 2000s, Orbital continued expanding its missile defense systems business with a $900 million award to develop, build, test and support interceptor booster vehicles. In 2006 Orbital conducted its 500th mission since the founding with a diverse portfolio of products that included satellites, launch vehicles. Orbital is currently on-track to deliver on this contract with its Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket following the success of Cygnus Orb-D1, the new company will be called Orbital ATK, Inc. and will serve U. S. Orbital was a provider of small- to medium-class satellites, since the companys founding in 1982, Orbital has delivered 150 spacecraft to commercial, military and civil customers worldwide. To date, these spacecraft have amassed well over 1000 years of on-orbit operations, the Communications & Imaging Satellites developed by Orbital are smaller and more affordable. Earth imagery and high resolution digital imaging satellites such as the OrbView series are developed and manufactured by Orbital. In the last 10 years, Orbital has built more scientific, Orbitals space launch vehicles are considered the industry standard for boosting small payloads to orbit. The Minotaur ground-launched rockets combine Pegasus upper stages with either government-supplied or commercially available first-stage rocket motors to boost larger payloads to orbit, Minotaur IV combines decommissioned Peacekeeper rocket motors with proven Orbital avionics and fairings to provide increased lifting capacity for government-sponsored payloads. With the development of the Antares space launch vehicle, Orbital is extending its capabilities to provide launch services for U. S. government. The inaugural launch of Antares occurred on April 21,2013 from Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Orbital is also a major provider of suborbital target and interceptor launch vehicles for the U. S. missile defense systems
4.
Delta II
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Delta II is an American expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II is part of the Delta rocket family and entered service in 1989, Delta II vehicles included the Delta 6000, and two Delta 7000 variants. In the early 1980s, all United States expendable launch vehicles were planned to be phased out in favor of the Space Shuttle, production of Delta, Atlas-Centaur, and Titan 34D had ended. McDonnell Douglas, at time the manufacturer of the Delta family. These were intended to launch a series of GPS Block II satellites, the Air Force exercised additional contract options in 1988, expanding this order to 20 vehicles, and NASA purchased its first Delta IIs in 1990 for the launch of three Earth-observing satellites. The first Delta II launch occurred in 1989, with a Delta 6925 boosting the first GPS Block II satellite into a 20,000 km high orbit, the first Delta II 7000-series flew in 1990, replacing the RS-27 engine of the 6000-series with the more powerful RS-27A. Additionally, the steel-cased Castor 4A solid boosters of the 6000 series were replaced with the composite-cased GEM40, all further Delta II launches except three were of this upgraded configuration, and the 6000-series was retired in 1992. McDonnell Douglas began Delta III development in the mid-90s as increasing satellite mass required more powerful launch vehicles, the upgraded boosters would still find use on the Delta II, leading to the Delta II Heavy. In total, the Delta II family has launched 153 times, no one was injured, and the launch pad itself was not seriously impacted, though several cars were destroyed and a few buildings were damaged. In 2007, Delta II completed its 75th consecutive successful launch, with the launch of SMAP in 2015, the Delta II has enjoyed 98 consecutive successful launches, with two more scheduled in 2017 and 2018. Should these launches be successful, the Delta II would achieve an unprecedented 100 consecutive launch successes, the first stage of the Delta II is propelled by a Rocketdyne RS-27 main engine burning RP-1 and liquid oxygen. This stage is referred to as the Extra-Extended Long Tank Thor. The RS-27 used on the 6000-series Delta II produced 915 kN, the stage is 26 meters long and 2.4 meters wide, weighs over 100 t when fueled, and burns for 260 seconds. In addition, two LR101-NA-11 vernier engines provide guidance for the first stage, for additional thrust during launch, the Delta II uses solid boosters. For the 6000-series, Delta II used Castor 4A boosters, while the 7000-series uses Graphite-Epoxy Motors manufactured by ATK, the vehicle can be flown with three, four, or, most commonly, nine boosters. The second stage of Delta II is the Delta-K, powered by a restartable Aerojet AJ10-118K engine burning hypergolic Aerozine-50 and these propellants are highly toxic and corrosive, and once loaded the launch must occur within approximately 37 days or the stage will have to be refurbished or replaced. This stage also contains a combined platform and guidance system that controls all flight events. The Delta-K stage is 6 meters long and 2.4 meters wide, contains up to 6 t of propellant, for low Earth orbit, Delta II is not equipped with a third stage
5.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
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Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is an installation of the United States Air Force Space Commands 45th Space Wing, headquartered at nearby Patrick Air Force Base. Located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida, CCAFS is the primary head of Americas Eastern Range with three launch pads currently active. The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip provides a 10, 000-foot runway close to the launch complexes for military airlift aircraft delivering heavy, a number of American space exploration firsts were launched from CCAFS, including the first U. S. Earth satellite, first U. S. astronaut, first U. S. astronaut in orbit, first two-man U. S. spacecraft, first U. S. unmanned lunar landing, and first three-man U. S. spacecraft. The CCAFS area had used by the United States government to test missiles since 1949. On June 1,1948, the U. S. Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station to the U. S. Air Force, with USAF renaming the facility the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base on June 10,1949. On October 1,1949, the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base was transferred from the Air Materiel Command to the Air Force Division of the Joint Long Range Proving Ground. On May 17,1950, the base was renamed the Long Range Proving Ground Base, in 1951, the Air Force established the Air Force Missile Test Center. Early American sub-orbital rocket flights were achieved at Cape Canaveral in 1956 and these flights occurred shortly after sub-orbital flights launched from White Sands Missile Range, such as the Viking 12 sounding rocket on February 4,1955. Following the Soviet Unions successful Sputnik 1, the US attempted its first launch of a satellite from Cape Canaveral on December 6,1957. However, the rocket carrying Vanguard TV3 blew up on the launch pad, NASA was founded in 1958, and Air Force crews launched missiles for NASA from the Cape, known then as Cape Canaveral Missile Annex. The row of Titan and Atlas launch pads along the coast came to be known as Missile Row in the 1960s, nASAs first manned spaceflight program was prepared for launch from Canaveral by U. S. Air Force crews. Mercurys objectives were to place a spacecraft in Earth orbit, investigate human performance and ability to function in space. Suborbital flights were launched by derivatives of the Armys Redstone missile from LC-5, Orbital flights were launched by derivatives of the Air Forces larger Atlas D missile from LC-14. The first American in orbit was John Glenn on February 20,1962, three more orbital flights followed through May 1963. Flight control for all Mercury missions was provided at the Mercury Control Center located at Canaveral near LC-14 and he had also convinced Gov. C. Farris Bryant to change the name of Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy and this resulted in some confusion in public perception, which conflated the two. This name was used through the Gemini and early Apollo programs, however, the geographical name change proved to be unpopular, owing to the historical longevity of Cape Canaveral
6.
9969 Braille
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It was discovered in 1992, by astronomers at Palomar observatory and later named after Louis Braille, the inventor of the writing system for the blind. It was photographed in closeup by the spacecraft Deep Space 1 in 1999, but a malfunction resulted in indistinct images. Discovered on May 27,1992, by E. F. Helin and K. J. Lawrence working at the Palomar observatory as part of NASAs Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey, it was given the provisional designation 1992 KD. Later, it was renamed Braille in honour of Louis Braille as suggested by Kennedy Space Center software engineer Kerry Babcock in The Planetary Societys contest titled Name That Asteroid, naming citation was published on 28 July 1999. Braille has an inclined orbit, and belongs to the somewhat rare class of asteroids known as Mars-crossing asteroids. Simulations of its orbit by scientists of the Deep Space 1 project predict that it will evolve into an Earth-crossing orbit in about 4000 years, Braille is a Q-type asteroid, composed mostly of olivine and pyroxene. Early ground-based observations had suggested that it could have been a V-type asteroid with similarities of composition between it and the much larger 4 Vesta, the asteroid is irregularly shaped, measuring approximately 2.1 km ×1 km ×1 km. By the time Deep Space 1 reached Braille, its ultraviolet spectrometer had failed, however, although the probe came within 26 km of Braille, the images and spectra were taken from an approximate distance of 14000 km, due to problems with the tracking system. The main purpose of the Deep Space 1 mission was technology testing, no lone asteroid as small as Braille had previously been observed from such a short distance
7.
19P/Borrelly
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Comet Borrelly or Borrellys Comet is a periodic comet, which was visited by the spacecraft Deep Space 1 in 2001. The comet last came to perihelion on May 28,2015, the comets nucleus, seen in the image on the right, is particularly notable for being shaped like a bowling pin. The comet was discovered by Alphonse Borrelly during a search for comets at Marseilles. On September 21,2001 the spacecraft Deep Space 1, which was launched to test new equipment in space and it was steered toward the comet during the extended mission of the craft, and presented an unexpected bonus for the mission scientists. Despite the failure of a system that determine its orientation, Deep Space 1 managed to send back to Earth what were, at the time. Http, //jcometobs. web. fc2. com/pcmtn/0019p. htm 19P – Gary W. Kronks Cometography Elements and Ephemeris for 19P/Borrelly – Minor Planet Center
8.
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
9.
Asteroid
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Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids and these terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered and found to have volatile-based surfaces that resemble those of comets, in this article, the term asteroid refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the remnants of planetesimals. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects, individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups, C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich, metallic. The size of asteroids varies greatly, some reaching as much as 1000 km across, asteroids are differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition, while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust. In addition, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of the aforementioned cometary ice, the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size, meteoroids have a diameter of less than one meter, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials, only one asteroid,4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the eye for a short time. As of March 2016, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than 1.3 million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, the United Nations declared June 30 as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the terms asteroid. Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers
10.
Comet
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A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to evolve gasses, a process called outgassing. This produces an atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of radiation and the solar wind acting upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across and are composed of collections of ice, dust. The coma may be up to 15 times the Earths diameter, if sufficiently bright, a comet may be seen from the Earth without the aid of a telescope and may subtend an arc of 30° across the sky. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many cultures, Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and they have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several millions of years. Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star. Long-period comets are set in motion towards the Sun from the Oort cloud by gravitational perturbations caused by passing stars, hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung to interstellar space. The appearance of a comet is called an apparition, Comets are distinguished from asteroids by the presence of an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere surrounding their central nucleus. This atmosphere has parts termed the coma and the tail, however, extinct comets that have passed close to the Sun many times have lost nearly all of their volatile ices and dust and may come to resemble small asteroids. Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar System, the discovery of main-belt comets and active centaur minor planets has blurred the distinction between asteroids and comets. As of November 2014 there are 5,253 known comets, however, this represents only a tiny fraction of the total potential comet population, as the reservoir of comet-like bodies in the outer Solar System is estimated to be one trillion. Roughly one comet per year is visible to the eye, though many of those are faint. Particularly bright examples are called Great Comets, the word comet derives from the Old English cometa from the Latin comēta or comētēs. That, in turn, is a latinisation of the Greek κομήτης, Κομήτης was derived from κομᾶν, which was itself derived from κόμη and was used to mean the tail of a comet. The astronomical symbol for comets is ☄, consisting of a disc with three hairlike extensions. The solid, core structure of a comet is known as the nucleus, cometary nuclei are composed of an amalgamation of rock, dust, water ice, and frozen gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia. As such, they are described as dirty snowballs after Fred Whipples model
11.
New Millennium Program
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New Millennium Program was a NASA project with focus on engineering validation of new technologies for space applications. Funding for the program was eliminated from the FY2009 budget by the 110th United States Congress, the spacecraft in the New Millennium Program were originally named Deep Space and Earth Observing. With a refocussing of the program in 2000, the Deep Space series was renamed Space Technology, Deep Space 1 – standalone spacecraft testing solar electric propulsion, autonomous operation etc. New Millennium Program site at Jet Propulsion Laboratory
12.
Deep Space 2
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Deep Space 2 was a NASA probe part of the New Millennium Program. It included two highly advanced miniature space probes that were sent to Mars aboard the Mars Polar Lander in January 1999, the probes were named Scott and Amundsen, in honor of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen, the first explorers to reach the Earths South Pole. The mission was declared a failure on March 13,2000, each probe weighed 2.4 kg and was encased in a protective aeroshell. They rode to Mars aboard another spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander, on impact, each shell was designed to shatter, and its grapefruit-sized probe was to punch through the soil and separate into two parts. The lower part, called the forebody, was designed to penetrate as far as 0.6 meters into the soil. The upper part of the probe, or aftbody, was designed to remain on the surface in order to radio data to the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in orbit around Mars. The Mars Global Surveyor would act as a relay in order to send the data collected back to Earth, the two sections of the probe were designed to remain connected via a data cable. The probes reached Mars apparently without incident, but communication was never established after landing and it is not known what the cause of failure was. The crash review board suggests several possible causes for failure, the radio equipment had a low chance of surviving the impact. The probes may simply have hit ground that was too rocky for survival, the batteries on the probes, which had been charged prior to launch almost a year earlier, might not have retained sufficient power. Exploration of Mars Deep Space 1 List of missions to Mars Schiaparelli EDM lander List of spacecraft powered by non-rechargeable batteries Michael C, hidden in Plain Sight, Finding Martian Landers. Deep Space 2 website at JPL
13.
Mars Polar Lander
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It formed part of the Mars Surveyor 98 mission. On December 3,1999, however, after the descent phase was expected to be complete, as part of the Mars Surveyor 98 mission, a lander was sought as a way to gather climate data from the ground in conjunction with an orbiter. NASA suspected that a quantity of frozen water may exist under a thin layer of dust at the south pole. In planning the Mars Polar Lander, the water content in the Martian south pole was the strongest determining factor for choosing a landing location. The Mars Polar Lander carried two small, identical impactor probes known as Deep Space 2 A and B. The probes were intended to strike the surface with a velocity at approximately 73°S 210°W, to penetrate the Martian soil. However, after entering the Martian atmosphere, attempts to contact the probes failed, the spacecraft measured 3.6 meters wide and 1.06 meters tall with the legs and solar arrays fully deployed. The base was constructed with an aluminum honeycomb deck, composite graphite epoxy sheets forming the edge. During landing, the legs were to deploy from stowed position with compression springs and absorb the force of the landing with crushable, each of these components included redundant units in the event that one may fail. Orientation of the spacecraft was performed using redundant Sun sensors, star trackers, during descent, the lander used three clusters of pulse modulated engines, each containing four 266-newton hydrazine monopropellant thrusters. The lander was launched with two tanks containing 64 kilograms of propellant and pressurized using helium. Each spherical tank was located at the underside of the lander and provided propellant during the cruise, during the cruise stage, communications with the spacecraft were conducted over the X band using a medium-gain, horn-shaped antenna and redundant solid state power amplifiers. For contingency measures, a low-gain omni-directional antenna was also included, the lander was originally intended to communicate data through the failed Mars Climate Orbiter via the UHF antenna. Alternatively, Mars Global Surveyor could be used as a using the UHF antenna at multiple times each Martian day. However the Deep Space Network could only receive data from, and not send commands to, the direct-to-Earth medium-gain antenna provided a 12. 6-kbit/s return channel, and the UHF relay path provided a 128-kbit/s return channel. Communications with the spacecraft would be limited to events, constrained by heat-buildup that would occur in the amplifiers. The number of events would also be constrained by power limitations. The cruise stage included two gallium arsenide solar arrays to power the system and maintain power to the batteries in the lander
14.
Ion thruster
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An ion thruster is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions with electricity, the term refers strictly to gridded electrostatic ion thrusters, but may more loosely be applied to all electric propulsion systems that accelerate plasma, since plasma consists of ions. Ion thrusters are categorized by how they accelerate the ions, using either electrostatic or electromagnetic force, electrostatic thrusters use the Coulomb force and accelerate the ions in the direction of the electric field. Electromagnetic thrusters use the Lorentz force, in either case, when an ion passes through an electrostatic grid engine, the potential difference of the electric field converts to the ions kinetic energy. Ion thrusters have an input power need of 1–7 kW, exhaust velocity 20–50 km/s, thrust 25–250 millinewtons, the Deep Space 1 spacecraft, powered by an ion thruster, changed velocity by 4.3 km/s while consuming less than 74 kilograms of xenon. The Dawn spacecraft broke the record, with a velocity of 10 km/s, applications include control of the orientation and position of orbiting satellites and use as a main propulsion engine for low-mass robotic space vehicles. The ion thruster is not the most promising type of electrically powered spacecraft propulsion, an ion drive would require two days to accelerate a car to highway speed. The technical characteristics, especially thrust, are inferior to the prototypes described in literature. Ion thrusters create small thrust levels compared to chemical rockets. The power imparted to the exhaust increases with the square of exhaust velocity while thrust increase is linear, conversely, chemical rockets provide high thrust, but are limited in total impulse by the small amount of energy that can be stored chemically in the propellants. Given the practical weight of power sources, the acceleration from an ion thruster is frequently less than one thousandth of standard gravity. However, since they operate as motors, they convert a greater fraction of input power into kinetic exhaust power. Chemical rockets operate as heat engines, and Carnots theorem limits the exhaust velocity, Ion thrust engines are practical only in the vacuum of space and cannot take vehicles through the atmosphere because ion engines do not work in the presence of ions outside the engine. Besides, the engines minuscule thrust would not matter when air resistance comes into play, spacecraft rely on conventional chemical rockets to initially reach orbit. The first person to mention the idea publicly was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1911, however, the first document to consider electric propulsion is Robert H. Goddards handwritten notebook in an entry dated September 6,1906. The first experiments with ion thrusters were carried out by Goddard at Clark University from 1916–1917, the technique was recommended for near-vacuum conditions at high altitude, but thrust was demonstrated with ionized air streams at atmospheric pressure. A working ion thruster was built by Harold R. Kaufman in 1959 at the NASA Glenn Research Center facilities and it was similar to a gridded electrostatic ion thruster and used mercury for propellant. Suborbital tests were conducted during the 1960s and in 1964, the engine was sent into a flight aboard the Space Electric Rocket Test 1
15.
NASA Deep Space Network
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It also performs radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe, and supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. DSN is part of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, similar networks are run by Europe, Russia, China, India, and Japan. DSN currently consists of three deep-space communications facilities placed approximately 120 degrees apart around the Earth and they are, the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex outside Barstow, California. Each facility is situated in semi-mountainous, bowl-shaped terrain to shield against radio frequency interference. All DSN antennas are steerable, high-gain, parabolic reflector antennas, the antennas and data delivery systems make it possible to, acquire telemetry data from spacecraft. Perform Very Long Baseline Interferometry observations, measure variations in radio waves for radio science experiments. Monitor and control the performance of the network, the antennas at all three DSN Complexes communicate directly with the Deep Space Operations Center located at the JPL facilities in Pasadena, California. In the early years, the control center did not have a permanent facility. It was a setup with numerous desks and phones installed in a large room near the computers used to calculate orbits. In July 1961, NASA started the construction of the permanent facility, the facility was completed in October 1963 and dedicated on May 14,1964. In the initial setup of the SFOF, there were 31 consoles,100 closed-circuit television cameras, currently, the operations center personnel at SFOF monitor and direct operations, and oversee the quality of spacecraft telemetry and navigation data delivered to network users. Tracking vehicles in space is quite different from tracking missions in low Earth orbit. Deep space missions are visible for long periods of time from a portion of the Earths surface. These few stations, however, require huge antennas, ultra-sensitive receivers, Deep space is defined in several different ways. According to a 1975 NASA report, the DSN was designed to communicate with spacecraft traveling approximately 16,000 km from Earth to the farthest planets of the solar system. JPL diagrams state that at an altitude of 30,000 km and this definition means that missions to the Moon, and the Earth–Sun Lagrangian points L1 and L2, are considered near space and cannot use the ITUs deep space bands. Other Lagrangian points may or may not be subject to rule due to distance. NASA was officially established on October 1,1958, to consolidate the separately developing space-exploration programs of the US Army, US Navy, the DSN was given responsibility for its own research, development, and operation in support of all of its users
16.
Global Positioning System
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The Global Positioning System is a space-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force. The GPS system operates independently of any telephonic or internet reception, the GPS system provides critical positioning capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. The United States government created the system, maintains it, however, the US government can selectively deny access to the system, as happened to the Indian military in 1999 during the Kargil War. The U. S. Department of Defense developed the system and it became fully operational in 1995. Roger L. Easton of the Naval Research Laboratory, Ivan A, getting of The Aerospace Corporation, and Bradford Parkinson of the Applied Physics Laboratory are credited with inventing it. Announcements from Vice President Al Gore and the White House in 1998 initiated these changes, in 2000, the U. S. Congress authorized the modernization effort, GPS III. In addition to GPS, other systems are in use or under development, mainly because of a denial of access. The Russian Global Navigation Satellite System was developed contemporaneously with GPS, GLONASS can be added to GPS devices, making more satellites available and enabling positions to be fixed more quickly and accurately, to within two meters. There are also the European Union Galileo positioning system and Chinas BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, special and general relativity predict that the clocks on the GPS satellites would be seen by the Earths observers to run 38 microseconds faster per day than the clocks on the Earth. The GPS calculated positions would quickly drift into error, accumulating to 10 kilometers per day, the relativistic time effect of the GPS clocks running faster than the clocks on earth was corrected for in the design of GPS. The Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, two American physicists, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, at Johns Hopkinss Applied Physics Laboratory, decided to monitor Sputniks radio transmissions. Within hours they realized that, because of the Doppler effect, the Director of the APL gave them access to their UNIVAC to do the heavy calculations required. The next spring, Frank McClure, the deputy director of the APL, asked Guier and Weiffenbach to investigate the inverse problem — pinpointing the users location and this led them and APL to develop the TRANSIT system. In 1959, ARPA also played a role in TRANSIT, the first satellite navigation system, TRANSIT, used by the United States Navy, was first successfully tested in 1960. It used a constellation of five satellites and could provide a navigational fix approximately once per hour, in 1967, the U. S. Navy developed the Timation satellite, which proved the feasibility of placing accurate clocks in space, a technology required by GPS. In the 1970s, the ground-based OMEGA navigation system, based on comparison of signal transmission from pairs of stations. Limitations of these systems drove the need for a more universal navigation solution with greater accuracy, during the Cold War arms race, the nuclear threat to the existence of the United States was the one need that did justify this cost in the view of the United States Congress. This deterrent effect is why GPS was funded and it is also the reason for the ultra secrecy at that time
17.
Deep Impact (spacecraft)
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Deep Impact was a NASA space probe launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 18,47 UTC on January 12,2005. It was designed to study the composition of the comet Tempel 1. At 05,52 UTC on July 4,2005, the impactor successfully collided with the comets nucleus, the impact excavated debris from the interior of the nucleus, forming an impact crater. Photographs taken by the spacecraft showed the comet to be more dusty, the impact generated an unexpectedly large and bright dust cloud, obscuring the view of the impact crater. Previous space missions to comets, such as Giotto and Stardust, were fly-by missions and these missions were able to photograph and examine only the surfaces of cometary nuclei, and even then from considerable distances. The Deep Impact mission was the first to eject material from a surface, and the mission garnered large publicity from the media, international scientists. Upon the completion of its mission, proposals were made to further utilize the spacecraft. Consequently, Deep Impact flew by Earth on December 31,2007 on its way to a mission, designated EPOXI, with a dual purpose to study extrasolar planets. By observing the composition of the comet, astronomers hoped to determine how comets form based on the differences between the interior and exterior makeup of the comet, observations of the impact and its aftermath would allow astronomers to attempt to determine the answers to these questions. The missions Principal Investigator was Michael AHearn, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, the Flyby spacecraft is about 3.2 meters long,1.7 meters wide and 2.3 meters high. It includes two panels, a debris shield, and several science instruments for imaging, infrared spectroscopy. The spacecraft also carried two cameras, the High Resolution Imager, and the Medium Resolution Imager.05 to 4.8 micrometres and it has been optimized for observing the comets nucleus. The MRI is the device, and was used primarily for navigation during the final 10-day approach. It also has a wheel, with a slightly different set of filters. The Impactor section of the spacecraft contains an instrument that is identical to the MRI, called the Impactor Targeting Sensor. Its dual purpose was to sense the Impactors trajectory, which could then be adjusted up to four times between release and impact, and to image the comet from close range, the final image taken by the impactor was snapped only 3.7 seconds before impact. The impactors payload, dubbed the Cratering Mass, was 100% copper, including this cratering mass, copper formed 49% of total mass of the impactor, this was to minimize interference with scientific measurements. Since copper was not expected to be found on a comet, instead of using explosives, it was also cheaper to use copper as the payload
18.
Fresnel lens
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A Fresnel lens is a type of compact lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses. The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass, a Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. A Fresnel lens can capture more light from a light source. The idea of creating a thinner, lighter lens by making it with separate sections mounted in a frame is attributed to Georges-Louis Leclerc. The Marquis de Condorcet proposed grinding such a lens from a thin piece of glass. French physicist and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel is most often given credit for the development of the lens for use in lighthouses. According to Smithsonian magazine, the first Fresnel lens was used in 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, scottish physicist Sir David Brewster is credited with convincing the United Kingdom to adopt these lenses in their lighthouses. The Fresnel lens reduces the amount of material required compared to a lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. An ideal Fresnel lens would have many such sections. In each section, the thickness is decreased compared to an equivalent simple lens. This effectively divides the surface of a standard lens into a set of surfaces of the same curvature. In some lenses, the surfaces are replaced with flat surfaces. Such a lens can be regarded as an array of prisms arranged in a fashion, with steeper prisms on the edges. In the first Fresnel lenses, each section was actually a separate prism, single-piece Fresnel lenses were later produced, being used for automobile headlamps, brake, parking, and turn signal lenses, and so on. In modern times, computer-controlled milling equipment might be used to more complex lenses. Fresnel lenses are made of glass or plastic, their size varies from large to medium to small. In many cases they are thin and flat, almost flexible. Modern Fresnel lenses usually consist of all refractive elements, however many of the lighthouses have both refracting and reflecting elements, as shown in the photographs and diagram
19.
Silicone
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They are typically heat-resistant and rubber-like, and are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooking utensils, and thermal and electrical insulation. Some common forms include silicone oil, silicone grease, silicone rubber, silicone resin, more precisely called polymerized siloxanes or polysiloxanes, silicones consist of an inorganic silicon-oxygen backbone chain with organic side groups attached to the silicon atoms. So, silicones are polymers constructed from inorganic-organic monomers, Silicones have in general the chemical formula n, where R is an organic group such as alkyl groups, or phenyl groups. In some cases, organic side groups can be used to two or more of these -Si-O- backbones together. By varying the -Si-O- chain lengths, side groups, and crosslinking, silicones can be synthesized with a variety of properties. They can vary in consistency from liquid to gel to rubber to hard plastic, the most common siloxane is linear polydimethylsiloxane, a silicone oil. The second largest group of materials is based on silicone resins. F. S. Kipping and Matt Saunders coined the word silicone in 1901 to describe polydiphenylsiloxane by analogy of its formula, Ph2SiO, with the formula of the ketone benzophenone, Ph2CO. Kipping was well aware that polydiphenylsiloxane is polymeric whereas benzophenone is monomeric and noted that Ph2SiO, Silicone is sometimes mistakenly referred to as silicon. The chemical element silicon is a crystalline metalloid widely used in computers, polysiloxanes are among the many substances commonly known as silicones. Molecules containing silicon-oxygen double bonds do exist and are called silanones, despite this, silanones are important as intermediates in gas-phase processes such as chemical vapor deposition in microelectronics production, and in the formation of ceramics by combustion. Most common are materials based on polydimethylsiloxane, which is derived by hydrolysis of dimethyldichlorosilane and this dichloride reacts with water as follows, n Si2Cl2 + n H2O → n + 2n HCl The polymerization typically produces linear chains capped with Si-Cl or Si-OH groups. Under different conditions the polymer is a cyclic, not a chain, for consumer applications such as caulks silyl acetates are used instead of silyl chlorides. The hydrolysis of the produce the less dangerous acetic acid as the reaction product of a much slower curing process. This chemistry is used in consumer applications, such as silicone caulk. Branches or cross-links in the chain can be introduced by using organosilicon precursors with fewer alkyl groups. Ideally, each molecule of such a compound becomes a branch point and this process can be used to produce hard silicone resins. Similarly, precursors with three groups can be used to limit molecular weight, since each such molecule has only one reactive site
20.
Glenn Research Center
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Its director is Janet L. Kavandi. Glenn Research Center is one of ten major NASA field centers, whose mission is to develop science and technology for use in aeronautics. As of May 2012, it employed about 1,650 civil servants and 1,850 support contractors located on or near its site, in 2010, the formerly on-site NASA Visitors Center moved to the Great Lakes Science Center. It was initially named the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory after funding approval was given in June 1940 and it was renamed the Flight Propulsion Research Laboratory in 1947, the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 1948 (after George W. Lewis and the NASA Lewis Research Center in 1958. On March 1,1999, the Lewis Research Center was officially renamed the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field after John Glenn, within NASA, the Glenn Research Center is often referred to by the initialism GRC. As early as 1951, researchers at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory were studying the processes in liquid rocket engines. The 6, 400-acre Plum Brook field station near Sandusky, Ohio is also part of Glenn and it is located about 50 mi. from the main campus. It specializes in very large-scale tests which would be hazardous within the confines of the main campus.5 million, the Space Power Facility houses the worlds largest space environment vacuum chamber. An icing tunnel is capable of simulating atmospheric icing condition to test the effect of ice accretion on aircraft wings, the Zero Gravity Research Facility is a vertical vacuum chamber used for microgravity experiments. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, the facility uses vertical drop tests in a vacuum chamber to investigate the behavior of components, systems, liquids, gases, and combustion in such circumstances. The facility consists of a shaft,28 feet in diameter. An aluminum vacuum chamber,20 feet in diameter and 470 feet high, is contained within the concrete shaft, the pressure in this vacuum chamber is reduced to 13.3 newtons per square meter before use. After the closing of the Japan Microgravity Centre, the NASA Zero-G facility is the largest microgravity facility in the world, another, smaller drop tower remains in use. That tower has a free time of 2.2 seconds. Aeronautics science and technology NASA Glenn does significant research and technology development on jet engines, producing designs that reduce energy consumption, pollution, the chevrons it invented for noise reduction appear on many commercial jet engines today, including the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A Glenn-derived ion engine was used on the successful NASA probe Deep Space 1 and it provides internships for high school students, college students, and high school teachers. The high school program is an 8-week internship for sophomores and juniors with interests in science, technology, engineering, math, the college level consists of a 10-week internship and is open to college students at all levels, from graduating high school seniors to PhD candidates. Only residents of the Cleveland area are eligible for high school LERCIP, interns work closely with their NASA mentors and are involved in the day-to-day activities of the Center
21.
NASA Solar Technology Application Readiness
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The NASA Solar Technology Application Readiness is a type of spacecraft ion thruster called electrostatic ion thruster. It is a highly efficient low-thrust spacecraft propulsion running on electrical power generated by solar arrays and it uses high-voltage electrodes to accelerate ions with electrostatic forces. The purpose of NSTAR program was to develop an ion propulsion system for deep space missions. The NSTAR electrostatic ion thruster was developed at NASAs Glenn Research Center and manufactured by Hughes, the feed system development was a collaborative effort between JPL and Moog Inc. In 1996, the prototype engine endured 8000 hours of operation in a vacuum chamber that simulates conditions of outer space. The results of the prototyping were used to define the design of hardware that was built for Deep Space 1 probe. One of the challenges was developing a compact and light weight power processing unit that converts power from the solar arrays into the kwtages needed by the engine, the engine achieves a specific impulse of one to three thousand seconds. This is an order of magnitude higher than traditional space propulsion methods and this leads to much lighter and less expensive launch vehicles. Although the engine produces just 92 millinewtons thrust at maximum power, the NSTAR ion thruster was first used on the Deep Space 1 spacecraft, launched on 24 October 1998. The Deep Space mission carried out a flyby of asteroid 9969 Braille and it produced 2.3 kW and was the primary propulsion for the probe. The second interplanetary mission using NSTAR engine was the Dawn spacecraft, Dawn is the first NASA exploratory mission to use ion propulsion to enter and leave more than one orbit. NASA engineers state that NSTAR engines, in the 5-kilowatt and 0.04 pound-thrust range, are candidates for propelling spacecraft to Europa, Pluto, and other small bodies in deep space
22.
Ion engine
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An ion thruster is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions with electricity, the term refers strictly to gridded electrostatic ion thrusters, but may more loosely be applied to all electric propulsion systems that accelerate plasma, since plasma consists of ions. Ion thrusters are categorized by how they accelerate the ions, using either electrostatic or electromagnetic force, electrostatic thrusters use the Coulomb force and accelerate the ions in the direction of the electric field. Electromagnetic thrusters use the Lorentz force, in either case, when an ion passes through an electrostatic grid engine, the potential difference of the electric field converts to the ions kinetic energy. Ion thrusters have an input power need of 1–7 kW, exhaust velocity 20–50 km/s, thrust 25–250 millinewtons, the Deep Space 1 spacecraft, powered by an ion thruster, changed velocity by 4.3 km/s while consuming less than 74 kilograms of xenon. The Dawn spacecraft broke the record, with a velocity of 10 km/s, applications include control of the orientation and position of orbiting satellites and use as a main propulsion engine for low-mass robotic space vehicles. The ion thruster is not the most promising type of electrically powered spacecraft propulsion, an ion drive would require two days to accelerate a car to highway speed. The technical characteristics, especially thrust, are inferior to the prototypes described in literature. Ion thrusters create small thrust levels compared to chemical rockets. The power imparted to the exhaust increases with the square of exhaust velocity while thrust increase is linear, conversely, chemical rockets provide high thrust, but are limited in total impulse by the small amount of energy that can be stored chemically in the propellants. Given the practical weight of power sources, the acceleration from an ion thruster is frequently less than one thousandth of standard gravity. However, since they operate as motors, they convert a greater fraction of input power into kinetic exhaust power. Chemical rockets operate as heat engines, and Carnots theorem limits the exhaust velocity, Ion thrust engines are practical only in the vacuum of space and cannot take vehicles through the atmosphere because ion engines do not work in the presence of ions outside the engine. Besides, the engines minuscule thrust would not matter when air resistance comes into play, spacecraft rely on conventional chemical rockets to initially reach orbit. The first person to mention the idea publicly was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1911, however, the first document to consider electric propulsion is Robert H. Goddards handwritten notebook in an entry dated September 6,1906. The first experiments with ion thrusters were carried out by Goddard at Clark University from 1916–1917, the technique was recommended for near-vacuum conditions at high altitude, but thrust was demonstrated with ionized air streams at atmospheric pressure. A working ion thruster was built by Harold R. Kaufman in 1959 at the NASA Glenn Research Center facilities and it was similar to a gridded electrostatic ion thruster and used mercury for propellant. Suborbital tests were conducted during the 1960s and in 1964, the engine was sent into a flight aboard the Space Electric Rocket Test 1
23.
SERT-1
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SERT-1 was a NASA probe used to test electrostatic ion thruster design and was built by NASAs Lewis Research Center. SERT-1 was the first spacecraft to utilize ion engine design and it was launched on July 20,1964 on a Scout rocket. It carried two electric engines, of the two, the first, an electron-bombardment ion engine was run for a total of 31 minutes and 16 seconds. This was the first time that an ion engine of any type had been operated in space, and demonstrated that the neutralizer worked as predicted. The test was followed by the SERT-II probe, launched into a 1000-km-high polar orbit on February 3,1970, up to 300 thruster restarts were demonstrated. The SERT rocket tests demonstrated ion engine technology that was used on the Deep Space 1 probe. Sovey, J. S. Rawlin, V. K. and Patterson, Space Electric Rocket Test 1 to Deep Space 1, Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol.17, No. RCA Astro-Electronics Division, SUMMARY REPORT on the DEVELOPMENT OF THE SERT I SPACECRAFT, NASA CR-54243 available at NTIS
24.
Hall-effect thruster
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In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster is a type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by an electric field. Hall-effect thrusters trap electrons in a field and then use the electrons to ionize propellant, efficiently accelerate the ions to produce thrust. Hall-effect thrusters are sometimes referred to as Hall thrusters or Hall-current thrusters, Hall thrusters are often regarded as a moderate specific impulse space propulsion technology. The Hall-effect thruster has benefited from considerable theoretical and experimental research since the 1960s, Hall thrusters operate on a variety of propellants, the most common being xenon. Other propellants of interest include krypton, argon, bismuth, iodine, magnesium, Hall thrusters are able to accelerate their exhaust to speeds between 10 and 80 km/s, with most models operating between 15 and 30 km/s. The thrust produced by a Hall thruster varies depending on the power level, devices operating at 1.35 kW produce about 83 mN of thrust. High-power models have demonstrated up to 3 N in the laboratory, power levels up to 100 kW have been demonstrated by xenon Hall thrusters. The applications of Hall-effect thrusters include control of the orientation and position of orbiting satellites, Hall thrusters were studied independently in the United States and the Soviet Union. They were first described publicly in the US in the early 1960s, however, the Hall thruster was first developed into an efficient propulsion device in the Soviet Union. In the US, scientists focused instead on developing gridded ion thrusters, the SPT design was largely the work of A. I. The first SPT to operate in space, an SPT-50 aboard a Soviet Meteor spacecraft, was launched December 1971 and they were mainly used for satellite stabilization in North-South and in East-West directions. Since then until the late 1990s 118 SPT engines completed their mission, Thrust of the first generation of SPT engines, SPT-50 and SPT-60 was 20 and 30 mN respectively. In 1982, SPT-70 and SPT-100 were introduced, their thrusts being 40 and 83 mN, in the post-Soviet Russia high-power SPT-140, SPT-160, SPT-200, T-160 and low-power SPT-35 were introduced. Soviet and Russian TAL-type thrusters include the D-38, D-55, D-80, over 200 Hall thrusters have been flown on Soviet/Russian satellites in the past thirty years. No failures have occurred on orbit. Hall thrusters continue to be used on Russian spacecraft and have flown on European and American spacecraft. Space Systems/Loral, an American commercial satellite manufacturer, now flies Fakel SPT-100s on their GEO communications spacecraft. Since their introduction to the west in the early 1990s, Hall thrusters have been the subject of a number of research efforts throughout the United States, France, Italy, Japan
25.
Gridded ion thruster
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The gridded ion thruster is a common design for ion thrusters, a highly efficient low-thrust spacecraft propulsion running on electrical power. These designs use high-voltage grid electrodes to accelerate ions with electrostatic forces, the ion engine was first demonstrated by German-born NASA scientist Ernst Stuhlinger, and developed in practical form by Harold R. Kaufman at NASA Lewis Research Center from 1957 to the early 1960s. The use of ion propulsion systems were first demonstrated in space by the NASA Lewis Space Electric Rocket Test I and these thrusters used mercury as the reaction mass. The first was SERT-1, launched July 20,1964, which proved that the technology operated as predicted in space. The second test, SERT-II, launched on February 3,1970, despite the demonstration in the 1960s and 70s, though, they were rarely used before the late 1990s. It is currently flying the Dawn asteroid mission, hughes Aircraft Company has developed the XIPS for performing station keeping on its geosynchronous satellites. NASA is currently working on a 20-50 kW electrostatic ion thruster called HiPEP which will have higher efficiency, specific impulse, aerojet has recently completed testing of a prototype NEXT ion thruster. At Giessen University and EADS the radio-frequency ion thrusters RIT were developed starting in the 1970s, rIT-10 engines are flying on ARTEMIS. Qinetiq has developed the T5 and T6 engines, flying the GOCE mission and is baselined for BepiColombo mission, in Japan, microwave engines µ10 flew on the Hayabusa mission. Propellant atoms are injected into the chamber and are ionized by electron bombardment. There are several ways of producing the energetic electrons for the discharge, the electrons can be accelerated by the oscillating electric field induced by an alternating magnetic field of a coil, which results in a self-sustaining discharge and omits any cathode. Microwave heating The positively charged ions move towards the system of the chamber due to diffusion. Once ions enter the sheath at a grid hole they will be accelerated by the potential difference between the first and the second grid of the extraction system. The ions are focused by the rather large electric field to pass through the extraction holes. The final ion energy is determined by the potential of the plasma, the negative voltage of the accelerator grid prevents electrons of the beam plasma outside the thruster from streaming back to the discharge plasma. Electron backstreaming occurs if the potential within the grid is not sufficiently negative, by increasing the negative voltage electron backstreaming can be avoided. The expelled ions propel the spacecraft in the opposite according to Newtons 3rd law. Electrons are emitted from a separate cathode placed near the ion beam, called the neutralizer, neutralizing is needed to prevent the spacecraft from gaining a net negative charge
26.
Specific impulse
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Specific impulse is a measure of the efficiency of rocket and jet engines. By definition, it is the total impulse delivered per unit of propellant consumed and is equivalent to the generated thrust divided by the propellant flow rate. If mass is used as the unit of propellant, then specific impulse has units of velocity, if weight is used instead, then specific impulse has units of time. Multiplying flow rate by the gravity before dividing it into the thrust. In rockets, this means the engine is more efficient at gaining altitude, distance and this is much less of a consideration in jet engines that employ wings and outside air for combustion to carry payloads that are much heavier than the propellant. Specific impulse includes the contribution to impulse provided by air that has been used for combustion and is exhausted with the spent propellant. Jet engines use air, and therefore have a much higher specific impulse than rocket engines. The specific impulse in terms of propellant mass spent is in units of distance per time and this is higher than the actual exhaust velocity because the mass of the combustion air is not being accounted for. Actual and effective exhaust velocity are the same in rocket engines not utilizing air, Specific impulse is inversely proportional to specific fuel consumption by the relationship Isp = 1/ for SFC in kg/ and Isp = 3600/SFC for SFC in lb/lbf-hr. The amount of propellant is normally measured either in units of mass or weight, however, if propellant weight is used, an impulse divided by a force turns out to be a unit of time, and so specific impulses are measured in seconds. These two formulations are both used and differ from each other by a factor of g0, the dimensioned constant of gravitational acceleration at the surface of the Earth. Note that the rate of change of momentum of a rocket per unit time is equal to the thrust, the higher the specific impulse, the less propellant is needed to produce a given thrust during a given time. In this regard a propellant is more efficient the greater its specific impulse and this should not be confused with energy efficiency, which can decrease as specific impulse increases, since propulsion systems that give high specific impulse require high energy to do so. It is important that thrust and specific impulse not be confused, the specific impulse is a measure of the impulse produced per unit of propellant expended, while thrust is a measure of the momentary or peak force supplied by a particular engine. In many cases, propulsion systems with high specific impulses—some ion thrusters reach 10,000 seconds—produce low thrusts. When calculating specific impulse, only propellant that is carried with the vehicle use is counted. Air resistance and the inability to keep a high specific impulse at a fast burn rate are why all the propellant is not used as fast as possible. If an engine weighs more in order to gain a specific impulse, it may not be as efficient in gaining altitude, distance
27.
Newton (unit)
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The newton is the International System of Units derived unit of force. It is named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics, see below for the conversion factors. One newton is the force needed to one kilogram of mass at the rate of one metre per second squared in direction of the applied force. In 1948, the 9th CGPM resolution 7 adopted the name newton for this force, the MKS system then became the blueprint for todays SI system of units. The newton thus became the unit of force in le Système International dUnités. This SI unit is named after Isaac Newton, as with every International System of Units unit named for a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case. Note that degree Celsius conforms to this rule because the d is lowercase. — Based on The International System of Units, section 5.2. Newtons second law of motion states that F = ma, where F is the applied, m is the mass of the object receiving the force. The newton is therefore, where the symbols are used for the units, N for newton, kg for kilogram, m for metre. In dimensional analysis, F = M L T2 where F is force, M is mass, L is length, at average gravity on earth, a kilogram mass exerts a force of about 9.8 newtons. An average-sized apple exerts about one newton of force, which we measure as the apples weight, for example, the tractive effort of a Class Y steam train and the thrust of an F100 fighter jet engine are both around 130 kN. One kilonewton,1 kN, is 102.0 kgf,1 kN =102 kg ×9.81 m/s2 So for example, a platform rated at 321 kilonewtons will safely support a 32,100 kilograms load. Specifications in kilonewtons are common in safety specifications for, the values of fasteners, Earth anchors. Working loads in tension and in shear, thrust of rocket engines and launch vehicles clamping forces of the various moulds in injection moulding machines used to manufacture plastic parts
28.
Dawn (spacecraft)
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Dawn is a space probe launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres. It is currently in orbit about its second target, the dwarf planet Ceres, Dawn entered Vesta orbit on July 16,2011, and completed a 14-month survey mission before leaving for Ceres in late 2012. Dawn entered Ceres orbit on March 6,2015, and is predicted to remain in orbit perpetually after the conclusion of its mission, NASA considered, but decided against, a proposal to visit a third target. The Dawn mission is managed by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with components contributed by European partners from the Netherlands, Italy. It is the first NASA exploratory mission to use ion propulsion, previous multi-target missions using conventional drives, such as the Voyager program, were restricted to flybys. The first working ion thruster was built by Harold R. Kaufman in 1959 at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Ohio, the thruster was similar to the general design of a gridded electrostatic ion thruster with mercury as its propellant. Suborbital tests of the engine followed during the 1960s, and in 1964 the engine was tested on a flight aboard the Space Electric Rocket Test 1. It successfully operated for the planned 31 minutes before falling back to Earth and this test was followed by an orbital test, SERT-2, in 1970. In addition to the ion thruster, among the other technologies validated by the DS1 was the Small Deep Space Transponder,26 proposals were submitted to the Discovery Program solicitation, with budget initially targeted at 300 million USD. Three semi-finalists were downselected in January 2001 for a design study, Dawn, Kepler. In December 2001 NASA selected the Kepler and the Dawn mission for the Discovery program, both missions were initially selected for a launch in 2006. The status of the Dawn mission changed several times, the project was cancelled in December 2003, and then reinstated in February 2004. On March 2,2006, Dawn was again cancelled by NASA, the spacecrafts manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corporation, appealed NASAs decision, offering to build the spacecraft at cost, forgoing any profit in order to gain experience in a new market field. NASA then put the cancellation under review, and on March 27,2006, in the last week of September 2006, the Dawn missions instrument payload integration reached full functionality. Although originally projected to cost US$373 million, cost overruns inflated the final cost of the mission to US$446 million in 2007, christopher T. Russell was chosen to lead the Dawn mission team. Ceres and Vesta were chosen as two contrasting protoplanets, the first one apparently wet and the dry, whose accretion was terminated by the formation of Jupiter. The two bodies provide a bridge in scientific understanding between the formation of planets and the icy bodies of the Solar System, and under what conditions a rocky planet can hold water. Dawn is the first mission to study a dwarf planet, arriving at Ceres a few months before the arrival of the New Horizons probe at Pluto in July 2015, Ceres comprises a third of the total mass of the asteroid belt
29.
Ames Research Center
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Ames Research Center, also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in Californias Silicon Valley. It was founded as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics laboratory and that agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration on October 1,1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist, at last estimate NASA Ames has over US$3.0 billion in capital equipment,2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget. Ames was founded to conduct research on the aerodynamics of propeller-driven aircraft, however, its role has expanded to encompass spaceflight. Ames plays a role in many NASA missions, Ames also develops tools for a safer, more efficient national airspace. The centers current director is Eugene Tu, the site is mission center for several key current missions and a major contributor to the new exploration focus as a participant in the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Although Ames is a NASA Research Center, and not a center, it has nevertheless been closely involved in a number of astronomy. The Pioneer programs eight successful missions from 1965 to 1978 were managed by Charles Hall at Ames. By 1972, it supported the bold flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn with Pioneer 10 and those two missions were trail blazers for the planners of the more complex Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions, launched five years later. In 1978, the end of the program brought about a return to the solar system, with the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Multiprobe. Lunar Prospector was the mission selected by NASA for full development. Based on Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer data, mission scientists have determined that there is indeed water ice in the craters of the Moon. The 11-pound GeneSat-1, carrying bacteria inside a laboratory, was launched on December 16,2006. The very small NASA satellite has proven that scientists can quickly design, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission to look for water on the moon was a secondary payload spacecraft. LCROSS began its trip to the moon on the rocket as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It launched in April 2009 on an Atlas V rocket from Kennedy Space Center, the Kepler mission is NASAs first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets. The Kepler mission will monitor the brightness of stars to find planets that pass in front of them during the planets orbits, during such passes or transits, the planets will slightly decrease the stars brightness. Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy is a joint venture of the U. S, the aircraft is supplied by the U. S. and the infrared telescope by Germany
30.
Mars Exploration Rover
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NASAs Mars Exploration Rover mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the sending of the two rovers, MER-A Spirit and MER-B Opportunity—to explore the Martian surface and geology, both rovers outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days by far. MER-A Spirit was active until 2010, the success of the two MERs led to another mission, sending a bigger rover Curiosity in 2012. The missions scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks, the mission is part of NASAs Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers, the two Viking program landers in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997. The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90-sol primary mission was US$820 million, since the rovers have continued to function beyond their initial 90 sol primary mission, they have each received five mission extensions. The fifth mission extension was granted in October 2007, and ran to the end of 2009, the total cost of the first four mission extensions was $104 million, and the fifth mission extension is expected to cost at least $20 million. However, the dust storms lifted, allowing them to resume operations, on May 1,2009, during its fifth mission extension, Spirit became stuck in soft soil on Mars. This mode would enable Spirit to assist scientists in ways that a mobile platform could not, in recognition of the vast amount of scientific information amassed by both rovers, two asteroids have been named in their honor,37452 Spirit and 39382 Opportunity. The mission is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which designed, built, the search for evidence of habitability, taphonomy, and organic carbon on the planet Mars is now a primary NASA objective. The scientific objectives of the Mars Exploration Rover mission are to, Search for and characterize a variety of rocks, in particular, samples sought include those that have minerals deposited by water-related processes such as precipitation, evaporation, sedimentary cementation, or hydrothermal activity. Determine the distribution and composition of minerals, rocks, and soils surrounding the landing sites, determine what geologic processes have shaped the local terrain and influenced the chemistry. Such processes could include water or wind erosion, sedimentation, hydrothermal mechanisms, volcanism, perform calibration and validation of surface observations made by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter instruments. This will help determine the accuracy and effectiveness of various instruments that survey Martian geology from orbit, Search for iron-containing minerals, and to identify and quantify relative amounts of specific mineral types that contain water or were formed in water, such as iron-bearing carbonates. Characterize the mineralogy and textures of rocks and soils to determine the processes that created them, Search for geological clues to the environmental conditions that existed when liquid water was present. Assess whether those environments were conducive to life, the MER-A and MER-B probes were launched on June 10,2003 and July 7,2003, respectively. The launch vehicles were integrated onto pads right next to other, with MER-A on CCAFS SLC-17A. The dual pads allowed for working the 15- and 21-day planetary launch periods close together, the last possible day for MER-A was June 19,2003. NASAs Launch Services Program managed the launch of both spacecraft, the probes landed in January 2004 in widely separated equatorial locations on Mars
31.
Phoenix (spacecraft)
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Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25,2008, Mission scientists used instruments aboard the lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there. The total mission cost was about US $386 million, which includes cost of the launch, the multi-agency program was headed by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, under the direction of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was the first mission to Mars led by a university in NASA history. The operational funding for the mission extended through November 10,2008, Phoenix was NASAs sixth successful landing out of seven attempts and was the first successful landing in a Martian polar region. The lander completed its mission in August 2008, and made a last brief communication with Earth on November 2 as available solar power dropped with the Martian winter, the mission was declared concluded on November 10,2008, after engineers were unable to re-contact the craft. After unsuccessful attempts to contact the lander by the Mars Odyssey orbiter up to and past the Martian summer solstice on May 12,2010, the program was considered a success because it completed all planned science experiments and observations. One was to study the history of water, the key to unlocking the story of past climate change. The second was to evaluate past or potential planetary habitability in the ice-soil boundary, Phoenixs instruments were suitable for uncovering information on the geological and possibly biological history of the Martian Arctic. Phoenix was the first mission to return data from either of the poles, the primary mission was anticipated to last 90 sols – just over 92 Earth days. However, the craft exceeded its expected operational lifetime by a little over two months before succumbing to the cold and dark of an advancing Martian winter. Even had it survived some of the winter, the cold would have prevented it from lasting all the way through. The 2003–2004 observations of gas on Mars were made remotely by three teams working with separate data. Methane could also be the product of a process or the result of volcanic or hydrothermal activity. The mission was funded on the expectation that Phoenix would find water ice on the arctic plains of Mars. In August 2003 NASA selected the University of Arizona Phoenix mission for launch in 2007 and it was hoped this would be the first in a new line of smaller, low-cost, Scout missions in the agencys exploration of Mars program. The selection was the result of an intense competition with proposals from other institutions. The $325 million NASA award is more than six times larger than any single research grant in University of Arizona history
32.
Mars Science Laboratory
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Mars Science Laboratory is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26,2011, which successfully landed Curiosity, a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6,2012. The overall objectives include investigating Mars habitability, studying its climate and geology, the rover carries a variety of scientific instruments designed by an international team. MSL successfully carried out the most accurate Martian landing of any spacecraft, hitting a small target landing ellipse of only 7 by 20 km. In the event, MSL achieved a landing 2.4 km east and 400 m north of the center of the target and this location is near the mountain Aeolis Mons. The rover mission is set to explore for at least 687 Earth days over a range of 5 by 20 km, the total cost of the MSL project is about US$2.5 billion. Mars rovers include Sojourner from the Mars Pathfinder mission and the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit, Curiosity is about twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit and Opportunity, and carries over ten times the mass of scientific instruments. The MSL mission has four scientific goals, Determine the landing sites habitability including the role of water, the study of the climate and it is also useful preparation for a future manned mission to Mars. This data would be important for a manned mission. The MSL spacecraft includes spaceflight-specific instruments, in addition to utilizing one of the rover instruments—Radiation assessment detector —during the spaceflight transit to Mars. MSL EDL Instrument, The MEDLI projects main objective is to measure aerothermal environments, sub-surface heat shield material response, vehicle orientation, the MEDLI instrumentation suite was installed in the heatshield of the MSL entry vehicle. The acquired data will support future Mars missions by providing measured atmospheric data to validate Mars atmosphere models, MEDLI instrumentation consists of three main subsystems, MEDLI Integrated Sensor Plugs, Mars Entry Atmospheric Data System and the Sensor Support Electronics. Each computers memory includes 256 KB of EEPROM,256 MB of DRAM and this compares to 3 MB of EEPROM,128 MB of DRAM, and 256 MB of flash memory used in the Mars Exploration Rovers. The RCE computers use the RAD750 CPU operating at 200 MHz, the RAD750 CPU is capable of up to 400 MIPS, while the RAD6000 CPU is capable of up to 35 MIPS. Of the two computers, one is configured as backup, and will take over in the event of problems with the main computer. The rover has an Inertial Measurement Unit that provides 3-axis information on its position, the rovers computers are constantly self-monitoring to keep the rover operational, such as by regulating the rovers temperature. Activities such as taking pictures, driving, and operating the instruments are performed in a sequence that is sent from the flight team to the rover. The rovers computers function on VxWorks, an operating system from Wind River Systems. Once landed, the applications were replaced with software for driving on the surface, communications, Curiosity is equipped with several means of communication, for redundancy
33.
Earth Observing-1
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Its Advanced Land Imager measures nine different wavelengths simultaneously, instead of the seven measured by the imager in Landsat 7. This permits a greater flexibility in false-color imagery, in order to compare the two imagers, EO-1 follows Landsat 7 in its orbit by exactly one minute. EO-1 has also used to test new software, like the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment. This allows the spacecraft to decide for itself how best to create a desired image and it is only limited by a priority list of different types of images, and by forecasts of cloud cover provided by the NOAA. It was expected to function for months and was designed to function for eighteen months. Those expectations were greatly exceeded however the fuel was mostly depleted in February 2011. Small maneuvers have been successful for debris avoidance but long duration burns for orbit maintenance are not being performed due to insufficient fuel, EO-1 was deactivated on 30 March 2017. At its current altitude, it is estimated that the satellite will remain in orbit until the 2050s, Earth observation satellite EO1 Mission Overview. Delta 2 Rocket Puts Three Satellites into Earth Orbit, Earth Observing-1 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
34.
McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet
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The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is a twin-engine supersonic, all-weather carrier-capable multirole combat jet, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft. Designed by McDonnell Douglas and Northrop, the F/A-18 was derived from the latters YF-17 in the 1970s for use by the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The Hornet is also used by the air forces of other nations and, since 1986, by the U. S. Navys Flight Demonstration Squadron. The F/A-18 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 and it can carry a wide variety of bombs and missiles, including air-to-air and air-to-ground, supplemented by the 20-mm M61 Vulcan cannon. It is powered by two General Electric F404 turbofan engines, which give the aircraft a high thrust-to-weight ratio, the F/A-18 has excellent aerodynamic characteristics, primarily attributed to its leading edge extensions. The fighters primary missions are fighter escort, fleet air defense, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, air interdiction, close air support, the Hornet first saw combat action during the 1986 United States bombing of Libya and subsequently participated in the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War. The F/A-18 Hornet provided the design for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, its larger. In August 1973, Congress mandated that the Navy pursue a lower-cost alternative to the F-14, grumman proposed a stripped F-14 designated the F-14X, while McDonnell Douglas proposed a naval variant of the F-15, but both were nearly as expensive as the F-14. That summer, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger ordered the Navy to evaluate the competitors in the Air Forces Lightweight Fighter program, the Air Force competition specified a day fighter with no strike capability. On 2 May 1975, the Navy announced its selection of the YF-17, since the LWF did not share the design requirements of the VFAX, the Navy asked McDonnell Douglas and Northrop to develop a new aircraft from the design and principles of the YF-17. On 1 March 1977, Secretary of the Navy W. Graham Claytor announced that the F-18 would be named Hornet. Northrop had partnered with McDonnell Douglas as a contractor on NACF to capitalize on the latters experience in building carrier aircraft. On the F-18, the two agreed to evenly split component manufacturing, with McDonnell Douglas conducting final assembly. McDonnell Douglas would build the wings, stabilators, and forward fuselage, while Northrop would build the center and aft fuselage and vertical stabilizers. McDonnell Douglas was the contractor for the naval versions. The F-18, initially known as McDonnell Douglas Model 267, was modified from the YF-17. For carrier operations, the airframe, undercarriage, and tailhook were strengthened, folding wings and catapult attachments were added, and the landing gear widened. To meet Navy range and reserves requirements, McDonnell increased fuel capacity by 4,460 pounds, by enlarging the dorsal spine, a snag was added to the wings leading edge and stabilators to prevent an Aeroelastic flutter discovered in the F-15 stabilator
35.
Armstrong Flight Research Center
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The Armstrong Flight Research Center, located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. It was originally named in honor of Hugh L, first known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Muroc Flight Test Unit, the DFRC has also been known as the High-Speed Flight Research Station and the High-Speed Flight Station. The facility was renamed, effective March 1,2014, the Armstrong Flight Research Center in honor of Neil Armstrong, similarly the Western Aeronautical Test Range at the facility was renamed the NASA Hugh L. Dryden Aeronautical Test Range. The facility is NASAs premier site for research and operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world. It was also the home of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 designed to carry a Space Shuttle orbiter back to Kennedy Space Center if one landed at Edwards, david McBride is currently the centers director. He succeeded Kevin Petersen, who retired in April 2008, until 2004, Armstrong Flight Research Center operated the oldest B-52 Stratofortress bomber, a B-52B model which had been converted to drop test aircraft, dubbed Balls 8. It dropped a number of supersonic test vehicles, ranging from the X-15 to its last research program. The aircraft was retired and is currently on display near the North Gate of Edwards, NASAs predecessor, NACA, operated the Douglas Skyrocket. A successor to the Air Forces Bell X-1, the D-558-II could operate under rocket or jet power and it conducted extensive tests into aircraft stability in the transsonic range, optimal supersonic wing configurations, rocket plume effects, and high-speed flight dynamics. On November 20,1953, the Douglas Skyrocket became the first aircraft to fly at twice the speed of sound when it attained a speed of Mach 2.005. Like the X-1, the D-558-II could be air-launched using a B-29 Superfortress, unlike the X-1, the Skyrocket could also takeoff from a runway with the help of JATO units. On December 1,1984, a remotely piloted Boeing 720 aircraft was flown into specially built wing openers which tore the wings open, despite the new fuel additive, the resulting fire ball was huge, the fire still took an hour to fully extinguish. Even though the fuel additive did not prevent a fire, the research was not a complete failure. The additive still prevented the combustion of fuel which flowed over the fuselage of the aircraft. Also, instrumented crash test dummies were in the airplane for the impact, LASRE was a NASA experiment in cooperation with Lockheed Martin to study a reusable launch vehicle design based on a linear aerospike rocket engine. The experiments goal was to provide data to help Lockheed Martin validate the computational predictive tools they developed to design the craft. LASRE was a small, half-span model of a body with eight thrust cells of an aerospike engine. The experiment, mounted on the back of an SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, the interaction of the aerodynamic flow with the engine plume could create drag, design refinements look to minimize that interaction
36.
New Horizons
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New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASAs New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute, on January 19,2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 kilometers per second. After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28,2007, most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve on-board systems, except for brief annual checkouts. On December 6,2014, New Horizons was brought online for the Pluto encounter. On January 15,2015, the New Horizons spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto, on July 14,2015, at 11,49 UTC, it flew 12,500 km above the surface of Pluto, making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. On October 25,2016, at 21,48 UTC, the last of the recorded data from the Pluto flyby was received from New Horizons. Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons has maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69, expected to place on January 1,2019. Appointed as the principal investigator, Stern was described by Krimigis as the personification of the Pluto mission. New Horizons was based largely on Sterns work since Pluto 350, the New Horizons proposal was one of five that were officially submitted to NASA. It was later selected as one of two finalists to be subject to a concept study, in June 2001. In November 2001, New Horizons was officially selected for funding as part of the New Frontiers program. However, the new NASA Administrator appointed by the Bush Administration, Sean OKeefe, was not supportive of New Horizons, after an intense campaign to gain support for New Horizons, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey of 2003-2013 was published in the summer of 2002. New Horizons topped the list of projects considered the highest priority among the community in the medium-size category, ahead of missions to the Moon. Weiler stated that it was a result that administration was not going to fight, Alice Bowman became Mission Operations Manager. New Horizons is the first mission in NASAs New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than the Discovery missions, the cost of the mission is approximately $700 million over 15 years. The spacecraft was built primarily by Southwest Research Institute and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the missions principal investigator is Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. After separation from the vehicle, overall control was taken by Mission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Howard County. The science instruments are operated at Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center in Boulder, New Horizons was originally planned as a voyage to the only unexplored planet in the Solar System
37.
Small Deep Space Transponder
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The Small Deep Space Transponder is a transponder designed by JPL specifically for deep space probes. It unifies a number of communication functions - receiver, command detector, telemetry modulator, exciters, beacon tone generator, the SDST is designed to handle X band uplink and both X band and Ka band downlink. JPL estimates that performing the functions with separate units requires over twice the mass and 4 or 5 individual subassemblies. The capabilities of the SDST include, X-band receiver/downconverter capable of carrier tracking at or below −156 dBm, differential one-way ranging for both X-band and Ka-band. Command and Data Handling communication via MIL-STD-1553, external port for an analog signal. SDST has been used in the missions, Deep Space 1. This was a mission that used the transponder for the first time. Deep Impact Dawn used a pair of SDSTs Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter MESSENGER STEREO Spitzer Space Telescope A pair of SDSTs were used in the stage of Phoenix. The lander used only UHF communication, the Mars Science Laboratory includes two SDSTs, one on the descent stage and one on the lander itself. The SDST on the descent stage was the main transponder for the cruise and landing portions of the flight, the descent stage crashed after lowering the rover, and the SDST on the lander became the active transponder. As many tightly constrained, high-performance systems, the SDST has a number of idiosyncrasies in operation, however, as the Dawn telecom lessons learned section points out, the use of common hardware such as the SDST allows knowledge of these characteristics from previous projects
38.
Curiosity (rover)
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Curiosity is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASAs Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26,2011, at 15,02 UTC aboard the MSL spacecraft, the Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km from the center of the rovers touchdown target after a 560 million km journey. Curiositys design will serve as the basis for the planned Mars 2020 rover, in December 2012, Curiositys two-year mission was extended indefinitely. As of April 7,2017, Curiosity has been on Mars for 1659 sols since landing on August 6,2012, the mission will also help prepare for human exploration. This data would be important for a manned mission. The remaining mass of the MSL craft was discarded in the process of carrying out this task, dimensions, Curiosity has a mass of 899 kg including 80 kg of scientific instruments. The rover is 2.9 m long by 2.7 m wide by 2.2 m in height, power source, Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, like the successful Viking 1 and Viking 2 Mars landers in 1976. Radioisotope power systems are generators that produce electricity from the decay of isotopes, such as plutonium-238. Heat given off by the decay of this isotope is converted into electric voltage by thermocouples, providing constant power during all seasons and through the day, waste heat can be used via pipes to warm systems, freeing electrical power for the operation of the vehicle and instruments. Curiositys RTG is fueled by 4.8 kg of plutonium-238 dioxide supplied by the U. S. Department of Energy. The MMRTG produces less power over time as its plutonium fuel decays, at its minimum lifetime of 14 years, electrical power output is down to 100 watts. The power source will generate 9 MJ each day, much more than the solar panels of the Mars Exploration Rovers, the electrical output from the MMRTG charges two rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. This enables the power subsystem to meet power demands of rover activities when the demand temporarily exceeds the generator’s steady output level. Each battery has a capacity of about 42 ampere-hours, heat rejection system, The temperatures at the landing site can vary from −127 to 40 °C, therefore, the thermal system will warm the rover for most of the Martian year. It uses fluid pumped through 60 m of tubing in the body so that sensitive components are kept at optimal temperatures. The HRS also has the ability to cool components if necessary, the computers run the VxWorks real-time operating system. Each computers memory includes 256 kB of EEPROM,256 MB of DRAM, for comparison, the Mars Exploration Rovers used 3 MB of EEPROM,128 MB of DRAM, and 256 MB of flash memory. The RCE computers use the RAD750 CPU, which is a successor to the RAD6000 CPU of the Mars Exploration Rovers
39.
Time-of-flight mass spectrometry
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Time-of-flight mass spectrometry is a method of mass spectrometry in which an ions mass-to-charge ratio is determined via a time measurement. Ions are accelerated by a field of known strength. This acceleration results in an ion having the same energy as any other ion that has the same charge. The velocity of the ion depends on the mass-to-charge ratio, the time that it subsequently takes for the ion to reach a detector at a known distance is measured. This time will depend on the velocity of the ion, from this ratio and known experimental parameters, one can identify the ion. When the charged particle is accelerated into time-of-flight tube by the voltage U, thus, and we substitute the value of v in into. Rearranging so that the time is expressed by everything else. D2 U contains constants that in principle do not change when a set of ions are analyzed in a pulse of acceleration. Can thus be given as, where k is a proportionality constant representing factors related to the instrument settings, reveals more clearly that the time of flight of the ion varies with the square root of its mass-to-charge ratio. Consider a real-world example of a MALDI time-of-flight mass spectrometer instrument which is used to produce a spectrum of the tryptic peptides of a protein. Suppose the mass of one tryptic peptide is 1000 daltons, the kind of ionization of peptides produced by MALDI is typically +1 ions, so q = e in both cases. Suppose the instrument is set to accelerate the ions in a U =15,000 volts potential, and suppose the length of the flight tube is 1.5 meters. The final value should be in seconds, t =2.792 ×10 −5 s which is about 28 microseconds and this differs from a case of constant extraction field where the ions are accelerated instantaneously upon being formed. Delayed extraction is used with MALDI or laser desorption/ionization ion sources where the ions to be analyzed are produced in an expanding plume moving from the plate with a high speed. Conversely, those ions with greater forward momentum start to be accelerated at lower potential since they are closer to the extraction plate. At the exit from the region, the slower ions at the back of the plume will be accelerated to greater velocity than the initially faster ions at the front of the plume. In its way, the application of the acceleration field acts as a one-dimensional time-of-flight focusing element. The kinetic energy distribution in the direction of ion flight can be corrected by using a reflectron, the reflectron uses a constant electrostatic field to reflect the ion beam toward the detector
40.
Spectrometer
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A spectrometer is a scientific instrument originally used to split light into an array of separate colors, called a spectrum. Spectrometers were developed in early studies of physics, astronomy, the capability of spectroscopy to determine chemical composition drove its advancement and continues to be one of their primary uses. Spectrometers are used in astronomy to analyze the composition of stars and planets. The concept of a spectrometer now encompasses instruments that do not examine light, spectrometers separate particles, atoms, and molecules by their mass, momentum, or energy. These types of spectrometers are used in analysis and particle physics. Optical spectrometers, in particular, show the intensity of light as a function of wavelength or of frequency, the deflection is produced either by refraction in a prism or by diffraction in a diffraction grating. These spectrometers utilize the phenomenon of optical dispersion, the light from a source can consist of a continuous spectrum, an emission spectrum, or an absorption spectrum. Because each element leaves its spectral signature in the pattern of lines observed, a mass spectrometer is an analytical instrument that is used to identify the amount and type of chemicals present in a sample by measuring the mass-to-charge ratio and abundance of gas-phase ions. The energy spectrum of particles of mass can also be measured by determining the time of flight between two detectors in a time-of-flight spectrometer. Alternatively, if the velocity is known, masses can be determined in a mass spectrometer. When a fast charged particle enters a constant magnetic field B at right angles, it is deflected into a path of radius r. The momentum p of the particle is given by p = m v = q B r. The focussing principle of the oldest and simplest magnetic spectrometer, the semicircular spectrometer, a constant magnetic field is perpendicular to the page. Charged particles of momentum p that pass the slit are deflected into circular paths of radius r = p/qB and it turns out that they all hit the horizontal line at nearly the same place, the focus, here a particle counter should be placed. Since Danysz time, many types of magnetic spectrometers more complicated than the type have been devised. Generally, the resolution of an instrument tells us how well two close-lying energies can be resolved, generally, for an instrument with mechanical slits, higher resolution will mean lower intensity
41.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
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