1.
Geostationary orbit
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A geostationary orbit, geostationary Earth orbit or geosynchronous equatorial orbit is a circular orbit 35,786 kilometres above the Earths equator and following the direction of the Earths rotation. An object in such an orbit has a period equal to the Earths rotational period and thus appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky. Using this characteristic, ocean color satellites with visible and near-infrared light sensors can also be operated in geostationary orbit in order to monitor sensitive changes of ocean environments, the notion of a geostationary space station equipped with radio communication was published in 1928 by Herman Potočnik. The first appearance of an orbit in popular literature was in the first Venus Equilateral story by George O. Smith. Clarke acknowledged the connection in his introduction to The Complete Venus Equilateral, the orbit, which Clarke first described as useful for broadcast and relay communications satellites, is sometimes called the Clarke Orbit. Similarly, the Clarke Belt is the part of space about 35,786 km above sea level, in the plane of the equator, the Clarke Orbit is about 265,000 km in circumference. Most commercial communications satellites, broadcast satellites and SBAS satellites operate in geostationary orbits, a geostationary transfer orbit is used to move a satellite from low Earth orbit into a geostationary orbit. The first satellite placed into an orbit was the Syncom-3. A worldwide network of operational geostationary meteorological satellites is used to provide visible and infrared images of Earths surface, a geostationary orbit can only be achieved at an altitude very close to 35,786 km and directly above the equator. This equates to a velocity of 3.07 km/s and an orbital period of 1,436 minutes. This ensures that the satellite will match the Earths rotational period and has a footprint on the ground. All geostationary satellites have to be located on this ring. 85° per year, to correct for this orbital perturbation, regular orbital stationkeeping manoeuvres are necessary, amounting to a delta-v of approximately 50 m/s per year. A second effect to be taken into account is the longitude drift, there are two stable and two unstable equilibrium points. Any geostationary object placed between the points would be slowly accelerated towards the stable equilibrium position, causing a periodic longitude variation. The correction of this effect requires station-keeping maneuvers with a maximal delta-v of about 2 m/s per year, solar wind and radiation pressure also exert small forces on satellites, over time, these cause them to slowly drift away from their prescribed orbits. In the absence of servicing missions from the Earth or a renewable propulsion method, hall-effect thrusters, which are currently in use, have the potential to prolong the service life of a satellite by providing high-efficiency electric propulsion. This delay presents problems for latency-sensitive applications such as voice communication, geostationary satellites are directly overhead at the equator and become lower in the sky the further north or south one travels. At latitudes above about 81°, geostationary satellites are below the horizon, because of this, some Russian communication satellites have used elliptical Molniya and Tundra orbits, which have excellent visibility at high latitudes
2.
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
3.
GLONASS
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GLONASS, or Global Navigation Satellite System, is a space-based satellite navigation system operating in the radionavigation-satellite service and used by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. It provides an alternative to GPS and is the second alternative navigational system in operation with global coverage, smartphones generally tend to use the same chipsets and the versions used since 2015 receive GLONASS signals and positioning information along with GPS. Since 2012, GLONASS was the second most used positioning system in mobile phones after GPS, the system has the advantage that smartphone users receive a more accurate reception identifying location to within 2 meters. Development of GLONASS began in the Soviet Union in 1976, beginning on 12 October 1982, numerous rocket launches added satellites to the system until the constellation was completed in 1995. After a decline in capacity during the late 1990s, in 2001, under Vladimir Putins presidency, GLONASS is the most expensive program of the Russian Federal Space Agency, consuming a third of its budget in 2010. By 2010, GLONASS had achieved 100% coverage of Russias territory and in October 2011, the GLONASS satellites designs have undergone several upgrades, with the latest version being GLONASS-K. GLONASS is a satellite navigation system, providing real time position and velocity determination for military. The satellites are located in middle circular orbit at 19,100 kilometres altitude with a 64.8 degree inclination, GLONASS orbit makes it especially suited for usage in high latitudes, where getting a GPS signal can be problematic. The constellation operates in three planes, with eight evenly spaced satellites on each. A fully operational constellation with global coverage consists of 24 satellites, to get a position fix the receiver must be in the range of at least four satellites. GLONASS satellites transmit two types of signal, open standard-precision signal L1OF/L2OF, and obfuscated high-precision signal L1SF/L2SF, the signals use similar DSSS encoding and binary phase-shift keying modulation as in GPS signals.0 MHz, known as the L1 band. The center frequency is 1602 MHz + n ×0.5625 MHz, signals are transmitted in a 38° cone, using right-hand circular polarization, at an EIRP between 25 and 27 dBW. The L2 band signals use the same FDMA as the L1 band signals, but transmit straddling 1246 MHz with the center frequency 1246 MHz + n×0.4375 MHz, the pseudo-random code is generated with a 9-stage shift register operating with a period of 1 ms. The navigational message is modulated at 50 bits per second, the superframe of the open signal is 7500 bits long and consists of 5 frames of 30 seconds, taking 150 seconds to transmit the continuous message. Each frame is 1500 bits long and consists of 15 strings of 100 bits, with 85 bits for data and check-sum bits, and 15 bits for time mark. Strings 1-4 provide immediate data for the satellite, and are repeated every frame, the data include ephemeris, clock and frequency offsets. Strings 5-15 provide non-immediate data for each satellite in the constellation, with frames I-IV each describing five satellites, the almanac uses modified Keplerian parameters and is updated daily. The details of the signal have not been disclosed
4.
Galileo (satellite navigation)
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The €5 billion project is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. The use of basic Galileo services will be free and open to everyone, the higher-precision capabilities will be available for paying commercial users. Galileo is intended to provide horizontal and vertical measurements within 1-metre precision. Galileo is to provide a new search and rescue function as part of the MEOSAR system. Satellites will be equipped with a transponder which will relay distress signals from emergency beacons to the Rescue coordination centre, which will then initiate a rescue operation. At the same time, the system is projected to provide a signal and this latter feature is new and is considered a major upgrade compared to the existing Cospas-Sarsat system, which does not provide feedback to the user. The first Galileo test satellite, the GIOVE-A, was launched 28 December 2005, as of December 2016 the system has 18 of 30 satellites in orbit. Galileo started offering Early Operational Capability on 15 December 2016 and is expected to reach Full Operational Capability in 2019, the complete 30-satellite Galileo system is expected by 2020. In 1999, the different concepts of the three main contributors of ESA for Galileo were compared and reduced to one by a joint team of engineers from all three countries. The first stage of the Galileo programme was agreed upon officially on 26 May 2003 by the European Union, the system is intended primarily for civilian use, unlike the more military-orientated systems of the United States, Russia, and China. The European system will only be subject to shutdown for military purposes in extreme circumstances and it will be available at its full precision to both civil and military users. On 17 January 2002, a spokesman for the stated that, as a result of US pressure and economic difficulties. A few months later, however, the situation changed dramatically, European Union member states decided it was important to have a satellite-based positioning and timing infrastructure that the US could not easily turn off in times of political conflict. The European Union and the European Space Agency agreed in March 2002 to fund the project, the starting cost for the period ending in 2005 is estimated at €1.1 billion. The required satellites were to be launched between 2011 and 2014, with the system up and running and under control from 2019. The final cost is estimated at €3 billion, including the infrastructure on Earth, the plan was for private companies and investors to invest at least two-thirds of the cost of implementation, with the EU and ESA dividing the remaining cost. The base Open Service is to be available without charge to anyone with a Galileo-compatible receiver, by early 2011 costs for the project had run 50% over initial estimates. Galileo is intended to be an EU civilian GNSS that allows all users access to it, initially GPS reserved the highest quality signal for military use, and the signal available for civilian use was intentionally degraded
5.
BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
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The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is a Chinese satellite navigation system. It consists of two separate satellite constellations – a limited test system that has been operating since 2000, the first BeiDou system, officially called the BeiDou Satellite Navigation Experimental System and also known as BeiDou-1, consists of three satellites and offers limited coverage and applications. It has been offering services, mainly for customers in China and neighboring regions. It became operational in China in December 2011, with 10 satellites in use and it is planned to begin serving global customers upon its completion in 2020. In-mid 2015, China started the build-up of the third generation BeiDou system in the global coverage constellation, the first BDS-3 satellite was launched 30 September 2015. As of March 2016,4 BDS-3 in-orbit validation satellites have been launched, the official English name of the system is BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. It is named after the Big Dipper constellation, which is known in Chinese as Běidǒu, the name literally means Northern Dipper, the name given by ancient Chinese astronomers to the seven brightest stars of the Ursa Major constellation. Historically, this set of stars was used in navigation to locate the North Star Polaris, as such, the name BeiDou also serves as a metaphor for the purpose of the satellite navigation system. The original idea of a Chinese satellite navigation system was conceived by Chen Fangyun, the third satellite, BeiDou-1C, was put into orbit on 25 May 2003. The successful launch of BeiDou-1C also meant the establishment of the BeiDou-1 navigation system. On 2 November 2006, China announced that from 2008 BeiDou would offer a service with an accuracy of 10 meters, timing of 0.2 microseconds. In February 2007, the fourth and last satellite of the BeiDou-1 system and it was reported that the satellite had suffered from a control system malfunction but was then fully restored. In April 2007, the first satellite of BeiDou-2, namely Compass-M1 was successfully put into its working orbit, the second BeiDou-2 constellation satellite Compass-G2 was launched on 15 April 2009. On 2 June 2010, the satellite was launched successfully into orbit. The fifth orbiter was launched into space from Xichang Satellite Launch Center by an LM-3I carrier rocket on 1 August 2010, three months later, on 1 November 2010, the sixth satellite was sent into orbit by LM-3C. Another satellite, the Beidou-2/Compass IGSO-5 satellite, was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center by a Long March-3A on 1 December 2011. In September 2003, China intended to join the European Galileo positioning system project and was to invest €230 million in Galileo over the few years. At the time, it was believed that Chinas BeiDou navigation system would only be used by its armed forces
6.
International Space Station
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The International Space Station is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component launched into orbit in 1998, and the ISS is now the largest man-made body in space, the ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays, and other components. ISS components have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, the ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon. The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft and it completes 15.54 orbits per day. The ISS is the space station to be inhabited by crews, following the Soviet and later Russian Salyut, Almaz. The station has continuously occupied for 16 years and 156 days since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000. This is the longest continuous presence in low Earth orbit. It has been visited by astronauts, cosmonauts and space tourists from 17 different nations, Soyuz has very limited downmass capability. The ISS programme is a joint project among five participating space agencies, NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, the ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements. The station is divided two sections, the Russian Orbital Segment and the United States Orbital Segment, which is shared by many nations. As of January 2014, the American portion of ISS is being funded until 2024, Roscosmos has endorsed the continued operation of ISS through 2024 but has proposed using elements of the Russian Orbital Segment to construct a new Russian space station called OPSEK. On 28 March 2015, Russian sources announced that Roscosmos and NASA had agreed to collaborate on the development of a replacement for the current ISS. NASA later issued a statement expressing thanks for Russias interest in future co-operation in space exploration. According to the original Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and Rosaviakosmos, the International Space Station was intended to be a laboratory, observatory and factory in low Earth orbit. It was also planned to provide transportation, maintenance, and act as a base for possible future missions to the Moon, Mars. In the 2010 United States National Space Policy, the ISS was given roles of serving commercial, diplomatic. The ISS provides a platform to conduct scientific research, the ISS simplifies individual experiments by eliminating the need for separate rocket launches and research staff
7.
Hubble Space Telescope
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The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, with a 2. 4-meter mirror, Hubbles four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. Hubbles orbit outside the distortion of Earths atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images, Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining the rate of expansion of the universe. The HST was built by the United States space agency NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute selects Hubbles targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center controls the spacecraft. Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923, Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, Hubbles main mirror was found to have been ground incorrectly, the optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993. Hubble is the telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. After launch by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, five subsequent Space Shuttle missions repaired, upgraded, the fifth mission was canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved the fifth servicing mission, the telescope is operating as of 2017, and could last until 2030–2040. Its scientific successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch in 2018, the history of the Hubble Space Telescope can be traced back as far as 1946, to the astronomer Lyman Spitzers paper Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory. In it, he discussed the two advantages that a space-based observatory would have over ground-based telescopes. First, the resolution would be limited only by diffraction, rather than by the turbulence in the atmosphere. Second, a telescope could observe infrared and ultraviolet light. Spitzer devoted much of his career to pushing for the development of a space telescope, space-based astronomy had begun on a very small scale following World War II, as scientists made use of developments that had taken place in rocket technology. An orbiting solar telescope was launched in 1962 by the United Kingdom as part of the Ariel space program, oAO-1s battery failed after three days, terminating the mission. It was followed by OAO-2, which carried out observations of stars and galaxies from its launch in 1968 until 1972. The continuing success of the OAO program encouraged increasingly strong consensus within the community that the LST should be a major goal
8.
Iridium satellite constellation
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The Iridium satellite constellation is a satellite constellation providing voice and data coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over the Earths entire surface. Iridium Communications owns and operates the constellation and sells equipment and access to its services, the constellation consists of 66 active satellites in orbit required for global coverage, and additional spare satellites to serve in case of failure. Satellites are in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately 485 mi, orbital velocity of the satellites is approximately 17,000 mph. Satellites communicate with neighboring satellites via Ka band inter-satellite links, each satellite can have four inter-satellite links, two to neighbors fore and aft in the same orbital plane, and two to satellites in neighboring planes to either side. The satellites orbit from pole to pole with an orbital period of roughly 100 minutes. This design means there is excellent satellite visibility and service coverage even at the North and South poles. The over-the-pole orbital design produces seams where satellites in counter-rotating planes next to one another are traveling in opposite directions, the constellation of 66 active satellites has 6 orbital planes spaced 30 degrees apart, with 11 satellites in each plane. This reduced set of 6 planes is sufficient to cover the entire Earths surface at every moment, because of the shape of the Iridium satellites reflective antennas, the satellites focus sunlight on a small area of the Earths surface in an incidental manner. This results in an effect called Iridium flares, where the satellite appears as one of the brightest objects in the night sky. The Iridium satellite constellation was conceived in the early 1990s, as a way to reach high Earth latitudes with reliable satellite communication services, early calculations showed that 77 satellites would be needed, hence the name Iridium – after the metal with atomic number 77. It turned out that just 66 were required to complete the blanket coverage of the planet with communication services, the constellation was launched to orbit in the late 1990s and the first telephone call was made over the network in 1998. However, although the system met its requirements, it was not a success in the market. Insufficient market demand existed for the product at the points on offer from Iridium as set by its parent company Motorola. The company failed to earn revenue sufficient to service the debt associated with building out the constellation and Iridium went bankrupt, the constellation continued following the bankruptcy of the original Iridium corporation. Users include journalists, explorers, and military units, the satellites each contain seven Motorola/Freescale PowerPC 603E processors running at roughly 200 MHz, connected by a custom backplane network. One processor is dedicated to each antenna, and two processors are dedicated to satellite control, one being a spare. Late in the project an extra processor was added to perform resource management, the cellular look down antenna has 48 spot beams arranged as 16 beams in three sectors. The four inter-satellite cross links on each operate at 10 Mbit/s
9.
Van Allen radiation belt
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A radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind that is captured by and held around a planet by that planets magnetic field. The Earth has two belts and sometimes others may be temporarily created. The discovery of the belts is credited to James Van Allen, Earths two main belts extend from an altitude of about 1,000 to 60,000 kilometers above the surface in which region radiation levels vary. Most of the particles form the belts are thought to come from solar wind. By trapping the solar wind, the magnetic field deflects those energetic particles, the belts are located in the inner region of the Earths magnetosphere. The belts trap energetic electrons and protons, other nuclei, such as alpha particles, are less prevalent. The belts endanger satellites, which must have their sensitive components protected with adequate shielding if they spend significant time in that zone, kristian Birkeland, Carl Størmer, and Nicholas Christofilos had investigated the possibility of trapped charged particles before the Space Age. Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 confirmed the existence of the belt in early 1958 under James Van Allen at the University of Iowa, the trapped radiation was first mapped by Explorer 4, Pioneer 3 and Luna 1. The term Van Allen belts refers specifically to the radiation belts surrounding Earth, however, the Sun does not support long-term radiation belts, as it lacks a stable, global, dipole field. The Earths atmosphere limits the belts particles to regions above 200–1,000 km, the belts are confined to a volume which extends about 65° on either side of the celestial equator. The NASA Van Allen Probes mission aims at understanding how populations of relativistic electrons and ions in space form or change in response to changes in solar activity, the Van Allen Probes mission successfully launched on August 30,2012. The primary mission is scheduled to last two years with expendables expected to last four, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center manages the Living With a Star program of which the Van Allen Probes is a project, along with Solar Dynamics Observatory. The Applied Physics Laboratory is responsible for the implementation and instrument management for the Van Allen Probes, Radiation belts exist around other planets and moons in the solar system that have magnetic fields powerful enough to sustain them. To date, most of these belts have been poorly mapped. The Voyager Program only nominally confirmed the existence of similar belts around Uranus, the inner Van Allen Belt extends typically from an altitude of 0.2 to 2 Earth radii or 1,000 km to 6,000 km above the Earth. In certain cases when solar activity is stronger or in areas such as the South Atlantic Anomaly. The inner belt contains high concentrations of electrons in the range of hundreds of keV and energetic protons with energies exceeding 100 MeV, the source of lower energy protons is believed to be proton diffusion due to changes in the magnetic field during geomagnetic storms. Due to the offset of the belts from Earths geometric center
10.
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
11.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
12.
Geocentric orbit
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A geocentric orbit or Earth orbit involves any object orbiting the Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. In 1997 NASA estimated there were approximately 2,465 artificial satellite orbiting the Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debris as tracked by the Goddard Space Flight Center. Over 16,291 previously launched objects have decayed into the Earths atmosphere, altitude as used here, the height of an object above the average surface of the Earths oceans. Analemma a term in astronomy used to describe the plot of the positions of the Sun on the celestial sphere throughout one year, apogee is the farthest point that a satellite or celestial body can go from Earth, at which the orbital velocity will be at its minimum. Eccentricity a measure of how much an orbit deviates from a perfect circle, eccentricity is strictly defined for all circular and elliptical orbits, and parabolic and hyperbolic trajectories. Equatorial plane as used here, an imaginary plane extending from the equator on the Earth to the celestial sphere, escape velocity as used here, the minimum velocity an object without propulsion needs to have to move away indefinitely from the Earth. An object at this velocity will enter a parabolic trajectory, above this velocity it will enter a hyperbolic trajectory, impulse the integral of a force over the time during which it acts. Inclination the angle between a plane and another plane or axis. In the sense discussed here the reference plane is the Earths equatorial plane, orbital characteristics the six parameters of the Keplerian elements needed to specify that orbit uniquely. Orbital period as defined here, time it takes a satellite to make one orbit around the Earth. Perigee is the nearest approach point of a satellite or celestial body from Earth, sidereal day the time it takes for a celestial object to rotate 360°. For the Earth this is,23 hours,56 minutes,4.091 seconds, solar time as used here, the local time as measured by a sundial. Velocity an objects speed in a particular direction, since velocity is defined as a vector, both speed and direction are required to define it. The following is a list of different geocentric orbit classifications, Low Earth orbit - Geocentric orbits ranging in altitude from 160 kilometers to 2,000 kilometres above mean sea level. At 160 km, one revolution takes approximately 90 minutes, medium Earth orbit - Geocentric orbits with altitudes at apogee ranging between 2,000 kilometres and that of the geosynchronous orbit at 35,786 kilometres. Geosynchronous orbit - Geocentric circular orbit with an altitude of 35,786 kilometres, the period of the orbit equals one sidereal day, coinciding with the rotation period of the Earth. The speed is approximately 3,000 metres per second, high Earth orbit - Geocentric orbits with altitudes at apogee higher than that of the geosynchronous orbit. A special case of high Earth orbit is the elliptical orbit
13.
Altitude
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Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used. As a general definition, altitude is a measurement, usually in the vertical or up direction. The reference datum also often varies according to the context, although the term altitude is commonly used to mean the height above sea level of a location, in geography the term elevation is often preferred for this usage. Vertical distance measurements in the direction are commonly referred to as depth. In aviation, the altitude can have several meanings, and is always qualified by explicitly adding a modifier. Parties exchanging altitude information must be clear which definition is being used, aviation altitude is measured using either mean sea level or local ground level as the reference datum. When flying at a level, the altimeter is always set to standard pressure. On the flight deck, the instrument for measuring altitude is the pressure altimeter. There are several types of altitude, Indicated altitude is the reading on the altimeter when it is set to the local barometric pressure at mean sea level. In UK aviation radiotelephony usage, the distance of a level, a point or an object considered as a point, measured from mean sea level. Absolute altitude is the height of the aircraft above the terrain over which it is flying and it can be measured using a radar altimeter. Also referred to as radar height or feet/metres above ground level, true altitude is the actual elevation above mean sea level. It is indicated altitude corrected for temperature and pressure. Height is the elevation above a reference point, commonly the terrain elevation. Pressure altitude is used to indicate flight level which is the standard for reporting in the U. S. in Class A airspace. Pressure altitude and indicated altitude are the same when the setting is 29.92 Hg or 1013.25 millibars. Density altitude is the altitude corrected for non-ISA International Standard Atmosphere atmospheric conditions, aircraft performance depends on density altitude, which is affected by barometric pressure, humidity and temperature. On a very hot day, density altitude at an airport may be so high as to preclude takeoff and these types of altitude can be explained more simply as various ways of measuring the altitude, Indicated altitude – the altitude shown on the altimeter
14.
Drag (physics)
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In fluid dynamics, drag is a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fluid. This can exist between two layers or a fluid and a solid surface. Unlike other resistive forces, such as dry friction, which are independent of velocity. Drag force is proportional to the velocity for a laminar flow, even though the ultimate cause of a drag is viscous friction, the turbulent drag is independent of viscosity. Drag forces always decrease fluid velocity relative to the object in the fluids path. In the case of viscous drag of fluid in a pipe, in physics of sports, the drag force is necessary to explain the performance of runners, particularly of sprinters. Types of drag are generally divided into the categories, parasitic drag, consisting of form drag, skin friction, interference drag, lift-induced drag. The phrase parasitic drag is used in aerodynamics, since for lifting wings drag it is in general small compared to lift. For flow around bluff bodies, form and interference drags often dominate, further, lift-induced drag is only relevant when wings or a lifting body are present, and is therefore usually discussed either in aviation or in the design of semi-planing or planing hulls. Wave drag occurs either when an object is moving through a fluid at or near the speed of sound or when a solid object is moving along a fluid boundary. Drag depends on the properties of the fluid and on the size, shape, at low R e, C D is asymptotically proportional to R e −1, which means that the drag is linearly proportional to the speed. At high R e, C D is more or less constant, the graph to the right shows how C D varies with R e for the case of a sphere. As mentioned, the equation with a constant drag coefficient gives the force experienced by an object moving through a fluid at relatively large velocity. This is also called quadratic drag, the equation is attributed to Lord Rayleigh, who originally used L2 in place of A. Sometimes a body is a composite of different parts, each with a different reference areas, in the case of a wing the reference areas are the same and the drag force is in the same ratio to the lift force as the ratio of drag coefficient to lift coefficient. Therefore, the reference for a wing is often the area rather than the frontal area. For an object with a surface, and non-fixed separation points—like a sphere or circular cylinder—the drag coefficient may vary with Reynolds number Re. For an object with well-defined fixed separation points, like a disk with its plane normal to the flow direction
15.
Apollo program
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Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon, Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first manned flight in 1968. It achieved its goal of manned lunar landing, despite the setback of a 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration, Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. The crew returned to Earth safely by using the Lunar Module as a lifeboat for these functions, Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit, Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 pounds of rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moons composition. The program laid the foundation for NASAs subsequent human spaceflight capability, Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and manned spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers. The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, while the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three astronauts. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a station, circumlunar flights. The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that I was naming the spacecraft like Id name my baby. Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, in July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with a mission module cabin separate from the module. On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led by Maxime Faget, to serve as a gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of prestige, pledging to make the US not first but, first and, first if. Despite Kennedys rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president and he knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned Moon landing. On April 12,1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make a commitment on Americas response to the Soviets
16.
Human spaceflight
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Human spaceflight is space travel with a crew or passengers aboard the spacecraft. The first human spaceflight was launched by the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961 as a part of the Vostok program, humans have been continuously present in space for 16 years and 153 days on the International Space Station. All early human spaceflight was crewed, where at least some of the passengers acted to carry out tasks of piloting or operating the spacecraft, after 2015, several human-capable spacecraft are being explicitly designed with the ability to operate autonomously. Since the retirement of the US Space Shuttle in 2011, only Russia and China have maintained human spaceflight capability with the Soyuz program, currently, all expeditions to the International Space Station use Soyuz vehicles, which remain attached to the station to allow quick return if needed. The United States is developing commercial crew transportation to facilitate access to ISS and low Earth orbit. While spaceflight has typically been an activity, commercial spaceflight has gradually been taking on a greater role. NASA has also played a role to stimulate private spaceflight through programs such as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, the vehicles used for these services could then serve both NASA and potential commercial customers. Commercial resupply of ISS began two years after the retirement of the Shuttle, and commercial crew launches could begin by 2017 and these rockets were large enough to be adapted to carry the first artificial satellites into low Earth orbit. The USSR launched the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin into an orbit in Vostok 1 on a Vostok 3KA rocket. The US launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard on a flight aboard Freedom 7 on a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecrafts attitude, and landed inside it, the first American in orbit was John Glenn aboard Friendship 7, launched 20 February 1962 on a Mercury-Atlas rocket. The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules, including the first woman in space, the US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flight and four in orbit through 1963. US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon, Geminis objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used in the Moon mission. They were able to launch two orbital flights in 1964 and 1965 and achieved the first spacewalk, made by Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 on 8 March 1965, but Voskhod did not have Geminis capability to maneuver in orbit, and the program was terminated. In July 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedys goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon 21 July, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on the Moon through 1972, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The crew of Apollo 13, Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, survived a catastrophic in-flight spacecraft failure, meanwhile, the USSR secretly pursued human lunar orbiting and landing programs. On losing the Moon race, they concentrated on the development of stations, using the Soyuz as a ferry to take cosmonauts to. They started with a series of Salyut sortie stations from 1971 to 1986, after the Apollo program, the US launched the Skylab sortie space station in 1973, manning it for 171 days with three crews aboard Apollo spacecraft
17.
Gemini 11
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Gemini 11 ) was the ninth manned spaceflight mission of NASAs Project Gemini, which flew from September 12 to 15,1966. It was the 17th manned American flight and the 25th spaceflight to that time, astronauts Charles Pete Conrad, Jr. and Richard F. Gordon Jr. Gordon also performed two extra-vehicular activities for a total of 2 hours and 41 minutes. Williams, Jr. John W. Young Alan L. Bean Mass,8,374 pounds Highest orbit and this would simulate a Lunar Module rendezvous with the Command/Service Module after a lunar landing. Use the Agena rocket engine to put the craft in a high-apogee elliptical orbit. Demonstrate passive attitude stabilization of the two connected by a tether, and create artificial gravity by spinning the combined craft. Perform a computer-controlled atmospheric reentry to a precision splashdown point, Gemini 11 used the rocket on its Agena target vehicle to raise its apogee to 850 miles, the highest Earth orbit ever reached by a manned spacecraft. The perigee was 179 miles, and maximum velocity was 17,967 miles per hour, the apogee record stands as of March 2016, even though men have achieved greater distances from Earth by flying to the Moon in the Apollo program. The maximum operational altitude of the Space Shuttle was lower, at 600 miles, the crew docked and undocked four times, and still had sufficient Gemini maneuvering fuel for an unplanned fifth rendezvous. They did not remain in the orbit, but changed it back to a near-circular one at 184 miles. Gordons first EVA, planned to last for two hours, involved fastening a 100-foot tether, stored in the Agenas docking collar, to the Geminis docking bar for the passive stabilization experiment, the passive stabilization experiment proved to be a bit troublesome. Conrad and Gordon separated the craft in a position, but found that the tether would not be kept taut simply by the Earths gravity gradient. However, they were able to generate an amount of artificial gravity, about 0.00015 g. Gordon successfully performed a second EVA standing up with his head and shoulders out of the hatch to photograph the Earth, clouds and this was not tiring, and lasted more than two hours. Radiation and Zero G Effects on Blood and Neurospora, To determine if weightlessness enhances the effects of radiation on human blood cells. Synoptic Terrain Photography, To obtain high-quality photographs for research in geology, geophysics, geography, oceanography, synoptic Weather Photography, To obtain selective high quality photographs of clouds to study the fine structure of the Earths weather system. Nuclear Emulsion, To study the radiation incident on the Earths atmosphere, to obtain detailed chemical composition of the heavy primary nuclei. Airglow Horizon Photography, To measure by direct photography the heights at which atomic oxygen, dim-Light Photography and Orthicon, To obtain photographs of various faint and diffuse astronomical phenomena. The Gemini 11 mission was supported by 9,054 United States Department of Defense personnel,73 aircraft and 13 ships, since Conrad and Gordon were both members of the US Navy, the embroidered mission patch was designed in Navy colors, blue and gold
18.
Apsis
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An apsis is an extreme point in an objects orbit. The word comes via Latin from Greek and is cognate with apse, for elliptic orbits about a larger body, there are two apsides, named with the prefixes peri- and ap-, or apo- added to a reference to the thing being orbited. For a body orbiting the Sun, the point of least distance is the perihelion, the terms become periastron and apastron when discussing orbits around other stars. For any satellite of Earth including the Moon the point of least distance is the perigee, for objects in Lunar orbit, the point of least distance is the pericynthion and the greatest distance the apocynthion. For any orbits around a center of mass, there are the terms pericenter and apocenter, periapsis and apoapsis are equivalent alternatives. A straight line connecting the pericenter and apocenter is the line of apsides and this is the major axis of the ellipse, its greatest diameter. For a two-body system the center of mass of the lies on this line at one of the two foci of the ellipse. When one body is larger than the other it may be taken to be at this focus. Historically, in systems, apsides were measured from the center of the Earth. In orbital mechanics, the apsis technically refers to the distance measured between the centers of mass of the central and orbiting body. However, in the case of spacecraft, the family of terms are used to refer to the orbital altitude of the spacecraft from the surface of the central body. The arithmetic mean of the two limiting distances is the length of the axis a. The geometric mean of the two distances is the length of the semi-minor axis b, the geometric mean of the two limiting speeds is −2 ε = μ a which is the speed of a body in a circular orbit whose radius is a. The words pericenter and apocenter are often seen, although periapsis/apoapsis are preferred in technical usage, various related terms are used for other celestial objects. The -gee, -helion and -astron and -galacticon forms are used in the astronomical literature when referring to the Earth, Sun, stars. The suffix -jove is occasionally used for Jupiter, while -saturnium has very rarely used in the last 50 years for Saturn. The -gee form is used as a generic closest approach to planet term instead of specifically applying to the Earth. During the Apollo program, the terms pericynthion and apocynthion were used when referring to the Moon, regarding black holes, the term peri/apomelasma was used by physicist Geoffrey A. Landis in 1998 before peri/aponigricon appeared in the scientific literature in 2002
19.
Space station
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A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by lack of major propulsion or landing systems. Instead, other vehicles transport people and cargo to and from the station, as of September 2016 three space stations are in orbit, the International Space Station, which is permanently manned, Chinas Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2. Previous stations include the Almaz and Salyut series, Skylab, each crew member stays aboard the station for weeks or months, but rarely more than a year. Since the ill-fated flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations, the duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.7 days, set by Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2016, four cosmonauts have completed single missions of over a year, Space stations have also been used for both military and civilian purposes. The last military-use space station was Salyut 5, which was used by the Almaz program of the Soviet Union in 1976 and 1977, Space stations have been envisaged since at least as early as 1869 when Edward Everett Hale wrote The Brick Moon. The first to give consideration to space stations were Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the early 20th century. In 1929 Herman Potočniks The Problem of Space Travel was published, during the Second World War, German scientists researched the theoretical concept of an orbital weapon based on a space station. During the same time as von Braun pursued Potočniks ideas, the Soviet design bureaus – chiefly Vladimir Chelomeys OKB-52 – were pursuing Tsiolkovskys ideas for space stations, the work by OKB-52 would lead to the Almaz programme and to the first space station, Salyut 1. The developed hardware laid the ground for the Salyut and Mir space stations, the first space station was Salyut 1, which was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19,1971. Like all the space stations, it was monolithic, intended to be constructed and launched in one piece. As such, monolithic stations generally contained all their supplies and experimental equipment when launched, and were considered expended, and then abandoned, the earlier Soviet stations were all designated Salyut, but among these there were two distinct types, civilian and military. The military stations, Salyut 2, Salyut 3, and Salyut 5, were known as Almaz stations. This allowed for a crew to man the station continually, Skylab was also equipped with two docking ports, like second-generation stations, but the extra port was never utilized. The presence of a port on the new stations allowed Progress supply vehicles to be docked to the station. This concept was expanded on Salyut 7, which docked with a TKS tug shortly before it was abandoned. The later Salyuts may reasonably be seen as a transition between the two groups, unlike previous stations, the Soviet space station Mir had a modular design, a core unit was launched, and additional modules, generally with a specific role, were later added to that. This method allows for flexibility in operation, as well as removing the need for a single immensely powerful launch vehicle
20.
Satellite
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In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit. Such objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earths Moon. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the worlds first artificial satellite, since then, about 6,600 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched. According to a 2013 estimate,3,600 remained in orbit, of those, about 1,000 were operational, the rest have lived out their useful lives and become space debris. Approximately 500 operational satellites are in orbit,50 are in medium-Earth orbit. A few large satellites have been launched in parts and assembled in orbit. Over a dozen space probes have been placed into orbit around other bodies and become artificial satellites to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, a few asteroids, Satellites are used for many purposes. Common types include military and civilian Earth observation satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites. Satellite orbits vary greatly, depending on the purpose of the satellite, well-known classes include low Earth orbit, polar orbit, and geostationary orbit. A launch vehicle is a rocket that throws a satellite into orbit, usually it lifts off from a launch pad on land. Some are launched at sea from a submarine or a mobile maritime platform, Satellites are usually semi-independent computer-controlled systems. Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control, the first fictional depiction of a satellite being launched into orbit was a short story by Edward Everett Hale, The Brick Moon. The idea surfaced again in Jules Vernes The Begums Fortune, in 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published Exploring Space Using Jet Propulsion Devices, which is the first academic treatise on the use of rocketry to launch spacecraft. He calculated the speed required for a minimal orbit. In 1928, Herman Potočnik published his book, The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor. He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for observation of the ground, in a 1945 Wireless World article, the English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in detail the possible use of communications satellites for mass communications. He suggested that three geostationary satellites would provide coverage over the entire planet, the first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4,1957, and initiating the Soviet Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer. This in turn triggered the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, Sputnik 1 helped to identify the density of high atmospheric layers through measurement of its orbital change and provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere
21.
Gas
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Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter. A pure gas may be made up of atoms, elemental molecules made from one type of atom. A gas mixture would contain a variety of pure gases much like the air, what distinguishes a gas from liquids and solids is the vast separation of the individual gas particles. This separation usually makes a colorless gas invisible to the human observer, the interaction of gas particles in the presence of electric and gravitational fields are considered negligible as indicated by the constant velocity vectors in the image. One type of commonly known gas is steam, the gaseous state of matter is found between the liquid and plasma states, the latter of which provides the upper temperature boundary for gases. Bounding the lower end of the temperature scale lie degenerative quantum gases which are gaining increasing attention, high-density atomic gases super cooled to incredibly low temperatures are classified by their statistical behavior as either a Bose gas or a Fermi gas. For a comprehensive listing of these states of matter see list of states of matter. The only chemical elements which are stable multi atom homonuclear molecules at temperature and pressure, are hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. These gases, when grouped together with the noble gases. Alternatively they are known as molecular gases to distinguish them from molecules that are also chemical compounds. The word gas is a neologism first used by the early 17th-century Flemish chemist J. B. van Helmont, according to Paracelsuss terminology, chaos meant something like ultra-rarefied water. An alternative story is that Van Helmonts word is corrupted from gahst and these four characteristics were repeatedly observed by scientists such as Robert Boyle, Jacques Charles, John Dalton, Joseph Gay-Lussac and Amedeo Avogadro for a variety of gases in various settings. Their detailed studies ultimately led to a relationship among these properties expressed by the ideal gas law. Gas particles are separated from one another, and consequently have weaker intermolecular bonds than liquids or solids. These intermolecular forces result from interactions between gas particles. Like-charged areas of different gas particles repel, while oppositely charged regions of different gas particles attract one another, transient, randomly induced charges exist across non-polar covalent bonds of molecules and electrostatic interactions caused by them are referred to as Van der Waals forces. The interaction of these forces varies within a substance which determines many of the physical properties unique to each gas. A comparison of boiling points for compounds formed by ionic and covalent bonds leads us to this conclusion, the drifting smoke particles in the image provides some insight into low pressure gas behavior
22.
Thermosphere
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The thermosphere is the layer of the Earths atmosphere directly above the mesosphere. The exosphere is above that but is a layer of the atmosphere. Within this layer of the atmosphere, ultraviolet radiation causes photoionization/photodissociation of molecules, taking its name from the Greek θερμός meaning heat, the thermosphere begins about 85 kilometres above the Earth. At these high altitudes, the atmospheric gases sort into strata according to molecular mass. Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation, temperatures are highly dependent on solar activity, and can rise to 2,000 °C. Radiation causes the particles in this layer to become electrically charged, enabling radio waves to be refracted. The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C during the day. Even though the temperature is so high, one would not feel warm in the thermosphere, a normal thermometer might be significantly below 0 °C, at least at night, because the energy lost by thermal radiation would exceed the energy acquired from the atmospheric gas by direct contact. In the anacoustic zone above 160 kilometres, the density is so low that molecular interactions are too infrequent to permit the transmission of sound, the dynamics of the thermosphere are dominated by atmospheric tides, which are driven by the very significant diurnal heating. Atmospheric waves dissipate above this level because of collisions between the gas and the ionospheric plasma. The International Space Station orbits the Earth within the middle of the thermosphere and it is convenient to separate the atmospheric regions according to the two temperature minima at about 12 km altitude and at about 85 km. The density of the Earths atmosphere decreases nearly exponentially with altitude, the total mass of the atmosphere is M = ρA H ≃1 kg/cm2 within a column of one square centimeter above the ground. 80% of that mass is concentrated within the troposphere, the mass of the thermosphere above about 85 km is only 0. 002% of the total mass. Therefore, no significant energetic feedback from the thermosphere to the atmospheric regions can be expected. Turbulence causes the air within the atmospheric regions below the turbopause at about 110 km to be a mixture of gases that does not change its composition. Its mean molecular weight is 29 g/mol with molecular oxygen and nitrogen as the two dominant constituents, the lighter constituents atomic oxygen, helium, and hydrogen successively dominate above about 200 km altitude and vary with geographic location, time, and solar activity. The ratio N2/O which is a measure of the density at the ionospheric F region is highly affected by these variations. These changes follow from the diffusion of the constituents through the major gas component during dynamic processes
23.
Exosphere
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In the case of bodies with substantial atmospheres, such as Earths atmosphere, the exosphere is the uppermost layer, where the atmosphere thins out and merges with interplanetary space. It is located directly above the thermosphere, mercury and several large moons, such as the Moon and the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, have exospheres without a denser atmosphere underneath, referred to as a surface boundary exosphere. Here, molecules are ejected on elliptic trajectories until they collide with the surface, smaller bodies such as asteroids, in which the molecules emitted from the surface escape to space, are not considered to have exospheres. The most common molecules within Earths exosphere are those of the lightest atmospheric gasses, hydrogen is present throughout the exosphere, with some helium, carbon dioxide, and atomic oxygen near its base. Because it can be difficult to define the boundary between the exosphere and outer space, the exosphere may be considered a part of interplanetary or outer space, the lower boundary of the exosphere is called the exobase. It is also called exopause and critical altitude as this is the altitude where barometric conditions no longer apply, atmospheric temperature becomes nearly a constant above this altitude. On Earth, the altitude of the ranges from about 500 to 1,000 kilometres depending on solar activity. This is shown in the following, consider a volume of air, with horizontal area A and height equal to the mean free path l, at pressure p and temperature T. For an ideal gas, the number of molecules contained in it is, from the requirement that each molecule traveling upward undergoes on average one collision, the pressure is, p = m A n g A where m A is the mean molecular mass of the gas. Solving these two equations gives, l = R T m A g which is the equation for the scale height. The fluctuation in the height of the exobase is important because this provides atmospheric drag on satellites, in principle, the exosphere covers distances where particles are still gravitationally bound to Earth, i. e. particles still have ballistic orbits that will take them back towards Earth. The upper boundary of the exosphere can be defined as the distance at which the influence of radiation pressure on atomic hydrogen exceeds that of Earths gravitational pull. This happens at half the distance to the Moon, the exosphere, observable from space as the geocorona, is seen to extend to at least 10,000 kilometres from Earths surface. The exosphere is a zone between Earths atmosphere and space. On 17 August 2015, based on studies with the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft, gerd W. Prolss, Physics of the Earths Space Environment, An Introduction
24.
Delta-v
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It is a scalar that has the units of speed. As used in context, it is not the same as the physical change in velocity of the vehicle. For multiple maneuvers, delta-v sums linearly, for interplanetary missions delta-v is often plotted on a porkchop plot which displays the required mission delta-v as a function of launch date. Δ v = ∫ t 0 t 1 | T | m d t where T is the instantaneous thrust at time, M is the instantaneous mass at time, t. In the absence of forces, Δ v = ∫ t 0 t 1 | v ˙ | d t where v ˙ is the coordinate acceleration. When thrust is applied in a constant direction this simplifies to, orbit maneuvers are made by firing a thruster to produce a reaction force acting on the spacecraft. e. If for example 20% of the mass is fuel giving a constant v exh of 2100 m/s the capacity of the reaction control system is Δ v =2100 ln m/s =460 m/s. But for many purposes, typically for studies or for maneuver optimization, like this one can for example use a patched conics approach modeling the maneuver as a shift from one Kepler orbit to another by an instantaneous change of the velocity vector. This approximation with impulsive maneuvers is in most cases very accurate, for low thrust systems, typically electrical propulsion systems, this approximation is less accurate. But even for geostationary spacecraft using electrical propulsion for out-of-plane control with thruster burn periods extending over several hours around the nodes this approximation is fair, delta-v is typically provided by the thrust of a rocket engine, but can be created by other engines. The time-rate of change of delta-v is the magnitude of the caused by the engines. The actual acceleration vector would be found by adding thrust per mass on to the gravity vector, the total delta-v needed is a good starting point for early design decisions since consideration of the added complexities are deferred to later times in the design process. The rocket equation shows that the amount of propellant dramatically increases with increasing delta-v. Which is just the rocket equation applied to the sum of the two maneuvers and this is convenient since it means that delta-v’s can be calculated and simply added and the mass ratio calculated only for the overall vehicle for the entire mission. Thus delta-v is commonly quoted rather than mass ratios which would require multiplication, when designing a trajectory, delta-v budget is used as a good indicator of how much propellant will be required. Propellant usage is a function of delta-v in accordance with the rocket equation. For example, most spacecraft are launched in an orbit with inclination fairly near to the latitude at the launch site, for examples of calculating delta-v, see Hohmann transfer orbit, gravitational slingshot, and Interplanetary Transport Network. It is also notable that large thrust can reduce gravity drag, delta-v is also required to keep satellites in orbit and is expended in propulsive orbital stationkeeping maneuvers
25.
Gravity drag
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In astrodynamics and rocketry, gravity drag is a measure of the loss in the net performance of a rocket while it is thrusting in a gravitational field. In other words, it is the cost of having to hold the rocket up in a gravity field, gravity losses depend on the time over which thrust is applied as well the direction the thrust is applied in. Gravity losses as a proportion of delta-v are minimised if maximum thrust is applied for a short time, or if thrust is applied in a direction perpendicular to the local gravitational field. During the launch and ascent phase, however, thrust must be applied over a period with a major component of thrust in the opposite direction to gravity. For example, to reach a speed of 7.8 km/s in low Earth orbit requires a delta-v of between 9 and 10 km/s, the additional 1.5 to 2 km/s delta-v is due to gravity losses and atmospheric drag. Consider the simplified case of a vehicle with constant mass accelerating vertically with a constant thrust per unit mass a in a field of strength g. The actual acceleration of the craft is a-g and it is using delta-v at a rate of a per unit time, over a time t the change in speed of the spacecraft is t, whereas the delta-v expended is at. The gravity drag is the difference between these figures, which is gt, as a proportion of delta-v, the gravity drag is g/a. A very large thrust over a short time will achieve a desired speed increase with little gravity drag. Efficiency drops drastically with increasing time spent thrusting against gravity, therefore, it is advisable to minimize the burn time. These effects apply whenever climbing to an orbit with higher specific orbital energy, thrust is a vector quantity, and the direction of the thrust has a large impact on the size of gravity losses. For instance, gravity drag on a rocket of mass m would reduce a 3mg thrust directed upward to an acceleration of 2g and its important to note that minimising gravity losses is not the only objective of a launching spacecraft. Rather, the objective is achieve the position/velocity combination for the desired orbit, for instance, the way to maximize acceleration is to thrust straight downward, however, thrusting downward is clearly not a viable course of action for a rocket intending to reach orbit. These facts sometimes inspire ideas to launch rockets from high flying airplanes, to minimize atmospheric drag. Delta-v budget Oberth effect Turner, Martin J. L. Rocket and Spacecraft Propulsion, Principles, Practice and New Developments, Springer, general Theory of Optimal Trajectory for Rocket Flight in a Resisting Medium
26.
Polar orbit
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A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited on each revolution. It therefore has an inclination of 90 degrees to the equator, a satellite in a polar orbit will pass over the equator at a different longitude on each of its orbits. Polar orbits are used for earth-mapping, earth observation, capturing the earth as time passes from one point, reconnaissance satellites. The Iridium satellite constellation also uses a polar orbit to provide telecommunications services, the disadvantage to this orbit is that no one spot on the Earths surface can be sensed continuously from a satellite in a polar orbit. Near-polar orbiting satellites commonly choose a Sun-synchronous orbit, meaning each successive orbital pass occurs at the same local time of day. To keep the local time on a given pass, the time period of the orbit must be kept as short as possible. However, very low orbits of a few hundred kilometers rapidly decay due to drag from the atmosphere, commonly used altitudes are between 700 km and 800 km, producing an orbital period of about 100 minutes. The half-orbit on the Sun side then takes only 50 minutes, list of orbits Molniya orbit Vandenberg Air Force Base, a major United States launch location for polar orbits Orbital Mechanics
27.
Medium Earth orbit
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Medium Earth orbit, sometimes called intermediate circular orbit, is the region of space around the Earth above low Earth orbit and below geostationary orbit. The most common use for satellites in this region is for navigation, communication, the most common altitude is approximately 20,200 kilometres ), which yields an orbital period of 12 hours, as used, for example, by the Global Positioning System. Other satellites in medium Earth orbit include Glonass and Galileo constellations, communications satellites that cover the North and South Pole are also put in MEO. The orbital periods of MEO satellites range from about 2 to nearly 24 hours, telstar 1, an experimental satellite launched in 1962, orbits in MEO. The orbit is home to a number of artificial satellites
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Radiation
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In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. Radiation is often categorized as either ionizing or non-ionizing depending on the energy of the radiated particles, Ionizing radiation carries more than 10 eV, which is enough to ionize atoms and molecules, and break chemical bonds. This is an important distinction due to the difference in harmfulness to living organisms. A common source of ionizing radiation is radioactive materials that emit α, β, or γ radiation, consisting of helium nuclei, electrons or positrons, gamma rays, X-rays and the higher energy range of ultraviolet light constitute the ionizing part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The lower-energy, longer-wavelength part of the spectrum including visible light, infrared light, microwaves and this type of radiation only damages cells if the intensity is high enough to cause excessive heating. Ultraviolet radiation has some features of both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation and these properties derive from ultraviolets power to alter chemical bonds, even without having quite enough energy to ionize atoms. The word radiation arises from the phenomenon of waves radiating from a source and this aspect leads to a system of measurements and physical units that are applicable to all types of radiation. This law does not apply close to a source of radiation or for focused beams. Radiation with sufficiently high energy can ionize atoms, that is to say it can knock electrons off atoms, ionization occurs when an electron is stripped from an electron shell of the atom, which leaves the atom with a net positive charge. Because living cells and, more importantly, the DNA in those cells can be damaged by this ionization, thus ionizing radiation is somewhat artificially separated from particle radiation and electromagnetic radiation, simply due to its great potential for biological damage. While an individual cell is made of trillions of atoms, only a fraction of those will be ionized at low to moderate radiation powers. If the source of the radiation is a radioactive material or a nuclear process such as fission or fusion. Particle radiation is subatomic particles accelerated to relativistic speeds by nuclear reactions, because of their momenta they are quite capable of knocking out electrons and ionizing materials, but since most have an electrical charge, they dont have the penetrating power of ionizing radiation. The exception is neutron particles, see below, there are several different kinds of these particles, but the majority are alpha particles, beta particles, neutrons, and protons. Roughly speaking, photons and particles with energies above about 10 electron volts are ionizing, particle radiation from radioactive material or cosmic rays almost invariably carries enough energy to be ionizing. The radiation is invisible and not directly detectable by human senses, as a result, in some cases, it may lead to secondary emission of visible light upon its interaction with matter, as in the case of Cherenkov radiation and radio-luminescence. Ionizing radiation has many uses in medicine, research and construction. Ultraviolet, of wavelengths from 10 nm to 125 nm, ionizes air molecules, causing it to be absorbed by air
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Orbit
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In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet about a star or a natural satellite around a planet. Normally, orbit refers to a regularly repeating path around a body, to a close approximation, planets and satellites follow elliptical orbits, with the central mass being orbited at a focal point of the ellipse, as described by Keplers laws of planetary motion. For ease of calculation, in most situations orbital motion is adequately approximated by Newtonian Mechanics, historically, the apparent motions of the planets were described by European and Arabic philosophers using the idea of celestial spheres. This model posited the existence of perfect moving spheres or rings to which the stars and it assumed the heavens were fixed apart from the motion of the spheres, and was developed without any understanding of gravity. After the planets motions were accurately measured, theoretical mechanisms such as deferent. Originally geocentric it was modified by Copernicus to place the sun at the centre to help simplify the model, the model was further challenged during the 16th century, as comets were observed traversing the spheres. The basis for the understanding of orbits was first formulated by Johannes Kepler whose results are summarised in his three laws of planetary motion. Second, he found that the speed of each planet is not constant, as had previously been thought. Third, Kepler found a relationship between the orbital properties of all the planets orbiting the Sun. For the planets, the cubes of their distances from the Sun are proportional to the squares of their orbital periods. Jupiter and Venus, for example, are respectively about 5.2 and 0.723 AU distant from the Sun, their orbital periods respectively about 11.86 and 0.615 years. The proportionality is seen by the fact that the ratio for Jupiter,5. 23/11.862, is equal to that for Venus,0. 7233/0.6152. Idealised orbits meeting these rules are known as Kepler orbits, isaac Newton demonstrated that Keplers laws were derivable from his theory of gravitation and that, in general, the orbits of bodies subject to gravity were conic sections. Newton showed that, for a pair of bodies, the sizes are in inverse proportion to their masses. Where one body is more massive than the other, it is a convenient approximation to take the center of mass as coinciding with the center of the more massive body. Lagrange developed a new approach to Newtonian mechanics emphasizing energy more than force, in a dramatic vindication of classical mechanics, in 1846 le Verrier was able to predict the position of Neptune based on unexplained perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. This led astronomers to recognize that Newtonian mechanics did not provide the highest accuracy in understanding orbits, in relativity theory, orbits follow geodesic trajectories which are usually approximated very well by the Newtonian predictions but the differences are measurable. Essentially all the evidence that can distinguish between the theories agrees with relativity theory to within experimental measurement accuracy
30.
Gravity
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Gravity, or gravitation, is a natural phenomenon by which all things with mass are brought toward one another, including planets, stars and galaxies. Since energy and mass are equivalent, all forms of energy, including light, on Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects and causes the ocean tides. Gravity has a range, although its effects become increasingly weaker on farther objects. The most extreme example of this curvature of spacetime is a hole, from which nothing can escape once past its event horizon. More gravity results in time dilation, where time lapses more slowly at a lower gravitational potential. Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental interactions of nature, the gravitational attraction is approximately 1038 times weaker than the strong force,1036 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 1029 times weaker than the weak force. As a consequence, gravity has an influence on the behavior of subatomic particles. On the other hand, gravity is the dominant interaction at the macroscopic scale, for this reason, in part, pursuit of a theory of everything, the merging of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics into quantum gravity, has become an area of research. While the modern European thinkers are credited with development of gravitational theory, some of the earliest descriptions came from early mathematician-astronomers, such as Aryabhata, who had identified the force of gravity to explain why objects do not fall out when the Earth rotates. Later, the works of Brahmagupta referred to the presence of force, described it as an attractive force. Modern work on gravitational theory began with the work of Galileo Galilei in the late 16th and this was a major departure from Aristotles belief that heavier objects have a higher gravitational acceleration. Galileo postulated air resistance as the reason that objects with less mass may fall slower in an atmosphere, galileos work set the stage for the formulation of Newtons theory of gravity. In 1687, English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton published Principia, which hypothesizes the inverse-square law of universal gravitation. Newtons theory enjoyed its greatest success when it was used to predict the existence of Neptune based on motions of Uranus that could not be accounted for by the actions of the other planets. Calculations by both John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier predicted the position of the planet. A discrepancy in Mercurys orbit pointed out flaws in Newtons theory, the issue was resolved in 1915 by Albert Einsteins new theory of general relativity, which accounted for the small discrepancy in Mercurys orbit. The simplest way to test the equivalence principle is to drop two objects of different masses or compositions in a vacuum and see whether they hit the ground at the same time. Such experiments demonstrate that all objects fall at the rate when other forces are negligible
31.
Weightlessness
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Counterintuitively, a uniform gravitational field does not by itself cause stress or strain, and a body in free fall in such an environment experiences no g-force acceleration and feels weightless. This is also termed zero-g where the term is more understood as meaning zero g-force. In such cases, a sensation of weight, in the sense of a state of stress can occur, in such cases, g-forces are felt, and bodies are not weightless. When the gravitational field is non-uniform, a body in free fall suffers tidal effects and is not stress-free, near a black hole, such tidal effects can be very strong. In the case of the Earth, the effects are minor, especially on objects of relatively small dimension and this condition is known as microgravity and it prevails in orbiting spacecraft. In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards related to human spaceflight. In Newtonian mechanics the term weight is two distinct interpretations by engineers. Weight1, Under this interpretation, the weight of a body is the force exerted on the body. Near the surface of the earth, a body mass is 1 kg has a weight of approximately 9.81 N, independent of its state of motion, free fall. Weightlessness in this sense can be achieved by removing the body far away from the source of gravity and it can also be attained by placing the body at a neutral point between two gravitating masses. Weight2, Weight can also be interpreted as that quantity which is measured when one uses scales, what is being measured there is the force exerted by the body on the scales. In a standard weighing operation, the body being weighed is in a state of equilibrium as a result of a force exerted on it by the weighing machine cancelling the gravitational field. By Newtons 3rd law, there is an equal and opposite force exerted by the body on the machine, typically, it is a contact force and not uniform across the mass of the body. If the body is placed on the scales in a lift in free fall in pure uniform gravity, the scale would read zero, and this describes the condition in which the body is stress free and undeformed. This is the weightlessness in free fall in a gravitational field. To sum up, we have two notions of weight of which weight1 is dominant, yet weightlessness is typically exemplified not by absence of weight1 but by the absence of stress associated with weight2. This is the sense of weightlessness in what follows below. A body is free, exerts zero weight2, when the only force acting on it is weight1 as when in free fall in a uniform gravitational field
32.
Satellite constellation
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A satellite constellation is a group of artificial satellites working in concert. Many LEO satellites are needed to maintain continuous coverage over an area and this contrasts with geostationary satellites, where a single satellite, moving at the same angular velocity as the rotation of the Earths surface, provides permanent coverage over a large area. A group of formation-flying satellites very close together and moving in almost identical orbits is known as a cluster or Satellite formation flying. There are a number of constellations that may satisfy a particular mission. Usually constellations are designed so that the satellites have similar orbits, eccentricity, in this way, the geometry can be preserved without excessive station-keeping thereby reducing the fuel usage and hence increasing the life of the satellites. Another consideration is that the phasing of each satellite in an orbital plane maintains sufficient separation to avoid collisions or interference at orbit plane intersections, circular orbits are popular, because then the satellite is at a constant altitude requiring a constant strength signal to communicate. A class of circular orbit geometries that has become popular is the Walker Delta Pattern constellation and this has an associated notation to describe it which was proposed by John Walker. The change in true anomaly for equivalent satellites in neighbouring planes is equal to f*360/t, for example, the Galileo Navigation system is a Walker Delta 56°, 27/3/1 constellation. This means there are 27 satellites in 3 planes inclined at 56 degrees, the 1 defines the phasing between the planes, and how they are spaced. The Walker Delta is also known as the Ballard rosette, after A. H. Ballards similar earlier work, Ballards notation is where m is a multiple of the fractional offset between planes. Another popular constellation type is the near-polar Walker Star, which is used by Iridium, here, the satellites are in near-polar circular orbits across approximately 180 degrees, travelling north on one side of the Earth, and south on the other. The active satellites in the full Iridium constellation form a Walker Star of 86. 4°, 66/6/2, Walker uses similar notation for stars and deltas, which can be confusing
33.
Communications satellite
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Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. There are over 2,000 communications satellites in Earth’s orbit, Wireless communication uses electromagnetic waves to carry signals. These waves require line-of-sight, and are thus obstructed by the curvature of the Earth, the purpose of communications satellites is to relay the signal around the curve of the Earth allowing communication between widely separated points. Communications satellites use a range of radio and microwave frequencies. To avoid signal interference, international organizations have regulations for which frequency ranges or bands certain organizations are allowed to use and this allocation of bands minimizes the risk of signal interference. The concept of the communications satellite was first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke, building on work by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and on the 1929 work by Herman Potočnik Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-motor, in October 1945 Clarke published an article titled Extraterrestrial Relays in the British magazine Wireless World. The article described the fundamentals behind the deployment of artificial satellites in geostationary orbits for the purpose of relaying radio signals, thus, Arthur C. Clarke is often quoted as being the inventor of the communications satellite and the term Clarke Belt employed as a description of the orbit. Decades later a project named Communication Moon Relay was a project carried out by the United States Navy. Its objective was to develop a secure and reliable method of communication by using the Moon as a passive reflector. The first artificial Earth satellite was Sputnik 1, put into orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4,1957, it was equipped with an on-board radio-transmitter that worked on two frequencies,20.005 and 40.002 MHz. Sputnik 1 was launched as a step in the exploration of space, while incredibly important it was not placed in orbit for the purpose of sending data from one point on earth to another. And it was the first artificial satellite in the leading to todays satellite communications. The first artificial satellite used solely to further advances in communications was a balloon named Echo 1. Echo 1 was the worlds first artificial communications satellite capable of relaying signals to other points on Earth and it soared 1,600 kilometres above the planet after its Aug.12,1960 launch, yet relied on humanitys oldest flight technology — ballooning. Launched by NASA, Echo 1 was a 30-metre aluminized PET film balloon served as a passive reflector for radio communications. The worlds first inflatable satellite — or satelloon, as they were informally known — helped lay the foundation of todays satellite communications, the idea behind a communications satellite is simple, Send data up into space and beam it back down to another spot on the globe. Echo 1 accomplished this by serving as an enormous mirror,10 stories tall
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Iridium Communications
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Iridium Communications Inc. is a publicly traded American company headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Iridium operates the Iridium satellite constellation, a system of 66 active satellites used for voice and data communication from hand-held satellite phones. The Iridium network is unique in that it covers the whole Earth, including poles, oceans and airways, the satellites are frequently visible in the night sky as satellite flares, a phenomenon typically observed as short-lived bright flashes of light. Iridium manages several operations centers, including Tempe, Arizona and Leesburg, Virginia, the U. S. Department of Defense, through its own dedicated gateway, relies on Iridium for global communications capabilities. The company derives its name from the element iridium. The Iridium communications service was launched on November 1,1998 by what was then Iridium SSC, the first Iridium call was made by Vice President of the United States Al Gore to his wife Tipper Gore. Motorola provided the technology and major financial backing, the logo of the company was designed by Landor Associates, and represents the Big Dipper. The founding company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy nine months later, the handsets could not operate as promoted until the entire constellation of satellites was in place, requiring a massive initial capital cost running into the billions of dollars. Mismanagement is another factor cited in the original programs failure. In 1999, CNN writer David Rohde detailed how he applied for Iridium service and was sent information kits and he encountered programming problems on Iridiums website, and a run-around from the companys representatives. After Iridium filed bankruptcy, it cited difficulty gaining subscribers, the initial commercial failure of Iridium had a damping effect on other proposed commercial satellite constellation projects, including Teledesic. Other schemes followed Iridium into bankruptcy protection, while a number of proposed schemes were never constructed. At one stage, there was a threat that the Iridium satellites would have to be de-orbited, however, they remained in orbit and their service was restarted in 2001 by the newly founded Iridium Satellite LLC, which was owned by a group of private investors. Although the satellites and other assets and technology behind Iridium were estimated to have cost around US$6 billion, in 2008, as part of a rebranding campaign by Media Graphics, Inc. the logo would be redesigned with updates to corporate color palette and font treatment. On February 10,2009, Iridium 33 collided with a defunct Russian satellite, two large debris clouds were created. Iridium Satellite LLC merged with a special purpose company created by the investment bank Greenhill & Co. in September 2009 to create Iridium Communications. The public company trades on NASDAQ under the symbol IRDM, the company had 611,000 subscribers as of the end of December 2012. Revenue for the full year 2012 was US $383.5 million with operational EBITDA of US $250.7 million, the system is being used extensively by the U. S. Department of Defense through the DoD gateway in Hawaii
35.
Earth observation satellite
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Most Earth observation satellites carry instruments that should be operated at a relatively low altitude. Altitudes below 500-600 kilometers are in general avoided, though, because of the significant air-drag at such low altitudes making frequent orbit reboost maneuvres necessary. The Earth observation satellites ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat of European Space Agency as well as the MetOp spacecraft of EUMETSAT are all operated at altitudes of about 800 km. The Proba-1, Proba-2 and SMOS spacecraft of European Space Agency are observing the Earth from an altitude of about 700 km, the Earth observation satellites of UAE, DubaiSat-1 & DubaiSat-2 are also placed in Low Earth Orbits orbits and providing satellite imagery of various parts of the Earth. To get global coverage with a low orbit it must be a polar orbit or nearly so, spacecraft carrying instruments for which an altitude of 36000 km is suitable sometimes use a geostationary orbit. Such an orbit allows uninterrupted coverage of more than 1/3 of the Earth, three geostationary spacecraft at longitudes separated with 120 deg can cover the whole Earth except the extreme polar regions. This type of orbit is used for meteorological satellites. A weather satellite is a type of satellite that is used to monitor the weather. These meteorological satellites, however, see more than clouds and cloud systems, weather satellite images helped in monitoring the volcanic ash cloud from Mount St. Helens and activity from other volcanoes such as Mount Etna. By monitoring vegetation changes over time, droughts can be monitored by comparing the current vegetation state to its long term average, anthropogenic emissions can be monitored by evaluating data of tropospheric NO2 and SO2. These types of satellites are almost always in Sun synchronous and frozen orbits, the Sun synchronous orbit is in general sufficiently close to polar to get the desired global coverage while the relatively constant geometry to the Sun mostly is an advantage for the instruments. The frozen orbit is selected as this is the closest to an orbit that is possible in the gravitational field of the Earth. Terrain can be mapped from space with the use of satellites, such as Radarsat-1 and TerraSAR-X. campevans. org/_CE/html/tiros1-2. html
36.
Reconnaissance satellite
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A reconnaissance satellite is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. The first generation type took photographs, then ejected canisters of photographic film which would descend to earth, corona capsules were retrieved in mid-air as they floated down on parachutes. Later, spacecraft had digital imaging systems and downloaded the images via encrypted radio links, in the United States, most information available is on programs that existed up to 1972, as this information has been declassified due to its age. Some information about prior to that time is still classified. A few up-to-date reconnaissance satellite images have been declassified on occasion, or leaked, there are several major types of reconnaissance satellite. Missile Early warning Provides warning of an attack by detecting ballistic missile launches, earliest known are Missile Defense Alarm System. Nuclear explosion detection Identifies and characterizes nuclear explosions in space, photo surveillance Provides imaging of earth from space. Images can be a survey or close-look telephoto, electronic-reconnaissance Signals intelligence, intercepts stray radio waves. Radar imaging Most space-based radars use synthetic aperture radar, can be used at night or through cloud cover. On 17 February 2014, a Russian Kosmos-1220 originally launched in 1980 and used for naval missile targeting until 1982, reconnaissance satellites have been used to enforce human rights, through the Satellite Sentinel Project, which monitors atrocities in Sudan and South Sudan. Additionally, companies such as GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have provided commercial satellite imagery in support of disaster response. During the 1950s, a Soviet hoax had led to American fears of a bomber gap, president Lyndon B. Johnson told a gathering in 1967, I wouldnt want to be quoted on this. Weve spent $35 or $40 billion on the space program, and if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge that we gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out and we were doing things we didnt need to do. We were building things we didnt need to build and we were harboring fears we didnt need to harbor. Spy satellites are commonly seen in spy fiction and military fiction, americas Secret Eyes in Space, the U. S. Spies in the Sky, Surveillance Satellites in War and Peace, berlin, New York, Springer, Chichester, UK, In association with Praxis Publishing
37.
Remote sensing
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Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object and thus in contrast to on-site observation. It may be split into active remote sensing and passive remote sensing, passive sensors gather radiation that is emitted or reflected by the object or surrounding areas. Reflected sunlight is the most common source of radiation measured by passive sensors, examples of passive remote sensors include film photography, infrared, charge-coupled devices, and radiometers. Active collection, on the hand, emits energy in order to scan objects and areas whereupon a sensor then detects. RADAR and LiDAR are examples of remote sensing where the time delay between emission and return is measured, establishing the location, speed and direction of an object. Remote sensing makes it possible to data of dangerous or inaccessible areas. Remote sensing applications include monitoring deforestation in areas such as the Amazon Basin, glacial features in Arctic and Antarctic regions, military collection during the Cold War made use of stand-off collection of data about dangerous border areas. Remote sensing also replaces costly and slow data collection on the ground, the basis for multispectral collection and analysis is that of examined areas or objects that reflect or emit radiation that stand out from surrounding areas. For a summary of major remote sensing satellite systems see the overview table, conventional radar is mostly associated with aerial traffic control, early warning, and certain large scale meteorological data. Other types of active collection includes plasmas in the ionosphere, interferometric synthetic aperture radar is used to produce precise digital elevation models of large scale terrain. Laser and radar altimeters on satellites have provided a range of data. By measuring the bulges of water caused by gravity, they map features on the seafloor to a resolution of a mile or so, by measuring the height and wavelength of ocean waves, the altimeters measure wind speeds and direction, and surface ocean currents and directions. Ultrasound and radar tide gauges measure sea level, tides and wave direction in coastal, light detection and ranging is well known in examples of weapon ranging, laser illuminated homing of projectiles. Vegetation remote sensing is an application of LIDAR. Radiometers and photometers are the most common instrument in use, collecting reflected and emitted radiation in a range of frequencies. The most common are visible and infrared sensors, followed by microwave, gamma ray and rarely and they may also be used to detect the emission spectra of various chemicals, providing data on chemical concentrations in the atmosphere. Simultaneous multi-spectral platforms such as Landsat have been in use since the 1970s and these thematic mappers take images in multiple wavelengths of electro-magnetic radiation and are usually found on Earth observation satellites, including the Landsat program or the IKONOS satellite. Landsat images are used by agencies such as KYDOW to indicate water quality parameters including Secchi depth, chlorophyll a density
38.
Sun-synchronous orbit
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A Sun-synchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit that combines altitude and inclination in such a way that the satellite passes over any given point of the planets surface at the same local solar time. Such an orbit can place a satellite in constant sunlight and is useful for imaging, spy, more technically, it is an orbit arranged in such a way that it precesses once a year. The surface illumination angle will be nearly the same time that the satellite is overhead. This consistent lighting is a characteristic for satellites that image the Earths surface in visible or infrared wavelengths. For example, a satellite in sun-synchronous orbit might ascend across the twelve times a day each time at approximately 15,00 mean local time. This is achieved by having the orbital plane precess approximately one degree each day with respect to the celestial sphere, eastward. Typical sun-synchronous orbits are about 600–800 km in altitude, with periods in the 96–100 minute range, riding the terminator is useful for active radar satellites as the satellites solar panels can always see the Sun, without being shadowed by the Earth. The dawn/dusk orbit has been used for solar observing scientific satellites such as Yohkoh, TRACE, Hinode and PROBA2, Sun-synchronous orbits can happen around other oblate planets, such as Mars. A satellite around the almost spherical Venus, for example, will need an outside push to be in a sun-synchronous orbit.696 deg. Note that according to this approximation cos i equals −1 when the semi-major axis equals 12352 km, the period can be in the range from 88 minutes for a very low orbit to 3.8 hours. If one wants a satellite to fly over some given spot on Earth every day at the same hour, it can do between 7 and 16 orbits per day, as shown in the following table. When one says that a Sun-synchronous orbit goes over a spot on the earth at the local time each time. The Sun will not be in exactly the same position in the sky during the course of the year, very often a frozen orbit is therefore selected that is slightly higher over the Southern hemisphere than over the Northern hemisphere. ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat of European Space Agency as well as the MetOp spacecraft of EUMETSAT are all operated in Sun-synchronous, orbital perturbation analysis Analemma Geosynchronous orbit Geostationary orbit List of orbits Polar orbit World Geodetic System Sandwell, David T. The Gravity Field of the Earth - Part 1 Sun-Synchronous Orbit dictionary entry, centennial of Flight Commission NASA Q&A Boain, Ronald J. The A-B-Cs of Sun Synchronous Orbit Design, List of satellites in Sun-synchronous orbit
39.
Envisat
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Envisat is a large inactive Earth-observing satellite which is still in orbit. Operated by the European Space Agency, it was the worlds largest civilian Earth observation satellite and it was launched on 1 March 2002 aboard an Ariane 5 from the Guyana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 790 km. It orbits the Earth in about 101 minutes, with a cycle of 35 days. After losing contact with the satellite on 8 April 2012, ESA formally announced the end of Envisats mission on 9 May 2012, Envisat cost €2.3 billion to develop and launch. The mission is due to be replaced by the Sentinel series of satellites, the first of these, Sentinel 1, has taken over the radar duties of Envisat since its launch in 2014. Envisat was launched as an Earth observation satellite and its objective was to service the continuity of European Remote-Sensing Satellite missions, providing additional observational parameters to improve environmental studies. Dimensions 26 m ×10 m ×5 m Mass 8,211 kg, including 319 kg of fuel and a 2,118 kg instrument payload. Power Solar array with a load of 3560 W. Envisat carries an array of nine Earth-observation instruments that gathered information about the Earth using a variety of measurement principles. A tenth instrument, DORIS, provided guidance and control, several of the instruments were advanced versions of instruments that were flown on the earlier ERS1 and ERS2 missions and other satellites. MERIS measures the reflectance of the Earth in the spectral range. MERIS was built at the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center, AATSR can measure the sea surface temperature in the visible and infrared spectra. Because of its wide angle lens it is possible to very precise measurements of atmospheric effects on how emissions from the Earths surface propagate. AATSR is the successor of ATSR1 and ATSR2, payloads of ERS1, AATSR can measure Earths surface temperature to a precision of 0.3 K, for climate research. Among the secondary objectives of AATSR is the observation of environmental parameters such as content, biomass. SCIAMACHY compares light coming from the sun to light reflected by the Earth, SCIAMACHY is an image spectrometer with the principal objective of mapping the concentration of trace gases and aerosols in the troposphere and stratosphere. Its high spectral resolution over a range of wavelengths can detect many trace gases even in tiny concentrations. The wavelengths captured also allow detection of aerosols and clouds. SCIAMACHY uses 3 different targeting modes, to the nadir, to the limbus, rA-2 is a dual-frequency Nadir pointing Radar operating in the Ku band and S bands, it is used to define ocean topography, map/monitor sea ice and measure land heights
40.
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
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By measuring gravity anomalies, GRACE shows how mass is distributed around the planet and how it varies over time. Data from the GRACE satellites is an important tool for studying Earths ocean, geology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is responsible for the overall mission management under the NASA ESSP program. The principal investigator is Dr. Byron Tapley of the University of Texas Center for Space Research, the GRACE satellites were launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia on a Rockot launch vehicle, on March 17,2002. The spacecraft were launched to an altitude of approximately 500 km at a near-polar inclination of 89°. The satellites are separated by approximately 200 km along their orbit track, GRACE has far exceeded its designed five-year lifespan. As of March 2017 the GRACE spacecrafts orbit has decayed by 150 km, GRACE chiefly detects changes in the distribution of water across the planet. Scientists use GRACE data to estimate ocean bottom pressure—as important to oceanographers as atmospheric pressure is to meteorologists, high-resolution static gravity fields estimated from GRACE data have helped improve the understanding of global ocean circulation. The hills and valleys in the surface are due to currents. GRACE enables separation of two effects to better measure ocean currents and their effect on climate. GRACE data have provided a record of loss within the ice sheets of Greenland. Greenland has been found to lose 280 ±58 Gt of ice per year between 2003 and 2013, while Antarctica has lost 67±44 Gt per year in the same period and these equate to a total of 0.9 mm/yr of sea level rise. GRACE data have provided insights into regional hydrology inaccessible to other forms of remote sensing, for example. The annual hydrology of the Amazon river basin provides a strong signal when viewed by GRACE. The most over-stressed is the Arabian aquifer system upon which more than 60 million people depend for water, GRACE also detects changes in the gravity field due to geophysical processes. Glacial isostatic adjustment— the slow rise of land masses once depressed by the weight of ice sheets from the last ice age—is chief among these signals. GIA signals appear as secular trends in gravity field measurements and must be removed to accurately estimate changes in water, GRACE is also sensitive to permanent changes in the gravity field due to earthquakes. For instance, GRACE data have been used to analyze the shifts in the Earths crust caused by the earthquake created the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. GRACE is sensitive to variations in the mass of the atmosphere
41.
Tiangong-2
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Tiangong-2 is a Chinese space laboratory and part of the Project 921-2 space station program. Tiangong-2 was launched on 15 September 2016,22,04,09, Tiangong-2 was originally expected to be launched by the China National Space Agency by 2015 to replace the prototype module Tiangong-1, which was launched in September 2011. In March 2011, Chinese officials stated that Tiangong-2 was scheduled to be launched by 2015, an uncrewed cargo spacecraft will dock with the station, allowing for resupply. In September 2014, its launch was postponed to September 2016, plans for visits in October 2016 by the crewed mission Shenzhou 11 and the uncrewed resupply craft Tianzhou were made public. The station was launched from Jiuquan aboard a Long March 2F rocket on 15 September 2016. Shenzhou 11 successfully docked with Tiangong-2 on 19 October 2016, aboard the Shenzhou 11, launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert, were Commander Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong who formed the inaugural crew for the space laboratory. It was Chinas first manned mission for more than three years, accompanying photography and near-distance fly-by observation were also carried out. They collected abundant data and made some achievements in programs of gamma-ray burst polarimeter, space cold atomic clock, the dimensions of Tiangong-2 are, Crew size,2, with 30 days of life support resources. The crew consists of two astronauts, Chinese space program Chinese space station – a planned multi-module orbital station Shenzhou program International Space Station Salyut programme – a similar Soviet space station Tiangong 3
42.
Space debris
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As of December 2016 there were 5 satellite collisions with space waste. As of 5 July 2016, the United States Strategic Command tracked a total of 17,852 artificial objects in orbit about the Earth, including 1,419 operational satellites. For comparison, the International Space Station orbits in the 300–400 kilometres range, the ISS has Whipple shielding, however known debris with a collision chance over 1/10000 are avoided by maneuvering the station. The Kessler syndrome, a chain reaction of collisions exponentially increasing the amount of debris, has been hypothesized to ensue beyond a critical density. This could affect useful polar-orbiting bands, increases the cost of protection for spacecraft missions, whether it is already underway is debated. The measurement, mitigation and potential removal of debris are conducted by participants in the space industry. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union launched a number of naval surveillance satellites as part of their RORSAT program, the satellites were equipped with a BES-5 nuclear reactor to power their radar systems. Although the satellites were normally boosted into a graveyard orbit at end of life. Satellites which were disposed of had an estimated eight-percent probability of puncture, the coolant freezes into droplets of solid sodium-potassium alloy, forming additional debris. As of 2009,19,000 debris over 5 cm were tracked, there are over 170 million pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm as of July 2013. There are approximately 670,000 pieces from one to ten cm, the current count of large debris is 29,000. The technical measurement cutoff is ~3 mm, over 98 percent of the 1,900 tons of debris in low Earth orbit was accounted for by about 1,500 objects, each over 100 kg. Total mass is mostly constant despite addition of smaller objects. Using a 2008 figure of 8,500 known items, it is estimated at 5,500 t, in LEO there are few universal orbits which keep spacecraft in particular rings. The closest are sun-synchronous orbits that keep a constant angle between the Sun and the plane, they are polar, meaning they cross over the polar regions. LEO satellites orbit in many planes, up to 15 times a day, orbits are further changed by perturbations, and collisions can occur from any direction. These can cross other orbits and lead to a cascade effect, a large-enough collision could make low Earth orbit impassable. Manned missions are mostly at 400 km and below, where air drag helps clear zones of fragments, atmospheric expansion as a result of space weather raises the critical altitude by increasing drag, in the 90s, it was a factor in reduced debris density
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Domino effect
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A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a chain of similar events. The term is best known as an effect, and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively small. It can be used literally or metaphorically, impact Mechanics, W. J. Stronge, Cambridge University Press,2004, ISBN 0-521-60289-0, ISBN 978-0-521-60289-1
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Kessler syndrome
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The Kessler syndrome, proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities, every satellite, space probe, and manned mission has the potential to produce space debris. A cascading Kessler syndrome becomes more likely as satellites in orbit increase in number, as of 2014, there were about 2,000 commercial and government satellites orbiting the earth. It is estimated there are 600,000 pieces of space junk ranging from 1 cm to 10 cm. Orbital decay is slower at altitudes where atmospheric drag is insignificant. The Kessler syndrome is especially insidious because of the domino effect, however, even a catastrophic Kessler scenario at LEO would pose minimal risk for launches continuing past LEO, or satellites traveling at medium Earth orbit or GEO. The catastrophic scenarios predict an increase in the number of collisions per year, U. S. government regulations require a boost, Δ H, of ~300 km. It could easily become a major debris contributor from a collision during the next 150 years that it remain in orbit. Ken MacLeods 1999 novel The Sky Road features an attempt to regain space-going capability following a Kessler syndrome catastrophe well before the book starts. The plot of 1999 manga and 2003 anime Planetes revolves around a crew in charge of disposal of debris to prevent further damage, the 2013 film Gravity features a Kessler syndrome catastrophe as the event that sets the plot in motion. The space flight video game Kerbal Space Program loading screen randomly displays the loading hints Treating Kessler Syndrome, Generating Ablation Cascade. The Wii U video game Devils Third utilizes Kessler syndrome as a major plot-point, in the game, both military and civilian satellites are destroyed by events similar to Kessler syndrome and this leads to a militaristic struggle among the worlds nations. 1985 ASM-135 ASAT anti-satellite missile test 2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test 2009 satellite collision P78-1 SNAP-10A Space Liability Convention USA-193 Kessler, D. Kessler was featured in a named, The Looming Space Junk Crisis, It’s Time to Take Out the Trash. Documentary, Collision point, The race to clean up space, the Looming Space Junk Crisis, Its Time to Take Out the Trash. Debris Spews Into Space After Satellites Collide aggregated public information research on space debris, graveyard orbits, etc Associated Press, Space junk littering orbit, might need cleaning up
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
