1.
NASA
–
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
2.
Goddard Space Flight Center
–
The Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1,1959 as NASAs first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D. C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. GSFC, one of ten major NASA field centers, is named in recognition of Dr. Robert H. Goddard, GSFC is a major U. S. laboratory for developing and operating unmanned scientific spacecraft. GSFC conducts scientific investigation, development and operation of space systems, Goddard scientists can develop and support a mission, and Goddard engineers and technicians can design and build the spacecraft for that mission. Mather shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on COBE, past missions managed by GSFC include the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, SMM, COBE, IUE, and ROSAT. Goddard is NASAs first, and oldest, space center and its original charter was to perform five major functions on behalf of NASA, technology development and fabrication, planning, scientific research, technical operations, and project management. The center is organized into directorates, each charged with one of these key functions. Until May 1,1959, NASAs presence in Greenbelt, Maryland was known as the Beltsville Space Center and it was then renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center, after Dr. Robert H. Goddard. Goddard Space Flight Center contributed to Project Mercury, Americas first manned flight program. The Center assumed a role for the project in its early days and managed the first 250 employees involved in the effort. However, the size and scope of Project Mercury soon prompted NASA to build a new Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Project Mercurys personnel and activities were transferred there in 1961. However, the Center focused primarily on designing unmanned satellites and spacecraft for research missions. Goddard pioneered several fields of development, including modular spacecraft design. Goddards Solar Max satellite, launched in 1980, was repaired by astronauts on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984. The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, remains in service and continues to grow in capability thanks to its modular design, today, the center remains involved in each of NASAs key programs. Goddard has developed more instruments for planetary exploration than any other organization, Goddards partly wooded campus is a few miles northeast of Washington, D. C. in Prince Georges County. The center is on Greenbelt Road, which is Maryland Route 193, baltimore, Annapolis, and NASA Headquarters in Washington are 30–45 minutes away by highway. Greenbelt also has a station with access to the Washington Metro system
3.
Atlas V
–
Atlas V is an active expendable launch system in the Atlas rocket family. Atlas V was formerly operated by Lockheed Martin, and is now operated by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance, the RD-180 engines are provided by RD Amross, while Aerojet Rocketdyne provides both the RL10 engines and the strap-on boosters used in some configurations. The standard payload fairing sizes are 4 or 5 meters in diameter, fairings sizes as large as 7.2 m in diameter and up to 32.3 m in length have been considered. The rocket is assembled in Decatur, Alabama and Harlingen, Texas, the Atlas V was developed by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services as part of the US Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program and made its inaugural flight on August 21,2002. The vehicle operates out of Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services continues to market the Atlas V to commercial customers worldwide. The Atlas V first stage, the Common Core Booster, is 12.5 ft in diameter and 106.6 ft in length and it is powered by a single Russian RD-180 main engine burning 627,105 lb of liquid oxygen and RP-1. The booster operates for four minutes, providing about 4 meganewtons of thrust. Thrust can be augmented with up to five Aerojet strap-on solid rocket boosters, the Atlas V is the newest member of the Atlas family. Compared to the Atlas III vehicle, there are numerous changes, compared to the Atlas II, the first stage is a near-redesign. The 1.5 staging technique was dropped on the Atlas III, the RD-180 features a dual-combustion chamber, dual-nozzle design and is fueled by a kerosene/liquid oxygen mixture. The main-stage diameter increased from 10 feet to 12.5 feet, as with the Atlas III, the different mixture ratio of the engine called for a larger oxygen tank compared to Western engines and stages. The first stage no longer use stainless steel monocoque balloon construction. The tanks are aluminum and are structurally stable when unpressurized. Use of aluminum, with a thermal conductivity than stainless steel. The tanks are covered in a polyurethane-based layer, accommodation points for parallel stages, both smaller solids and identical liquids, are built into first stage structures. The Centaur upper stage uses a pressure stabilized propellant tank design, the inertial navigation unit located on the Centaur provides guidance and navigation for both the Atlas and Centaur, and controls both Atlas and Centaur tank pressures and propellant use. The Centaur engines are capable of multiple in-space starts, making possible insertion into low Earth parking orbit, followed by a coast period, a subsequent third burn following a multi-hour coast can permit direct injection of payloads into geostationary orbit. The standard payload fairing sizes are 4 or 5 meters in diameter, the 4. 2-meter fairing, originally designed for the Atlas II booster, comes in three different lengths, the original 9-meter high version, as well as fairings 10 meters and 11 meters high
4.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
–
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is an installation of the United States Air Force Space Commands 45th Space Wing, headquartered at nearby Patrick Air Force Base. Located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida, CCAFS is the primary head of Americas Eastern Range with three launch pads currently active. The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip provides a 10, 000-foot runway close to the launch complexes for military airlift aircraft delivering heavy, a number of American space exploration firsts were launched from CCAFS, including the first U. S. Earth satellite, first U. S. astronaut, first U. S. astronaut in orbit, first two-man U. S. spacecraft, first U. S. unmanned lunar landing, and first three-man U. S. spacecraft. The CCAFS area had used by the United States government to test missiles since 1949. On June 1,1948, the U. S. Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station to the U. S. Air Force, with USAF renaming the facility the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base on June 10,1949. On October 1,1949, the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base was transferred from the Air Materiel Command to the Air Force Division of the Joint Long Range Proving Ground. On May 17,1950, the base was renamed the Long Range Proving Ground Base, in 1951, the Air Force established the Air Force Missile Test Center. Early American sub-orbital rocket flights were achieved at Cape Canaveral in 1956 and these flights occurred shortly after sub-orbital flights launched from White Sands Missile Range, such as the Viking 12 sounding rocket on February 4,1955. Following the Soviet Unions successful Sputnik 1, the US attempted its first launch of a satellite from Cape Canaveral on December 6,1957. However, the rocket carrying Vanguard TV3 blew up on the launch pad, NASA was founded in 1958, and Air Force crews launched missiles for NASA from the Cape, known then as Cape Canaveral Missile Annex. The row of Titan and Atlas launch pads along the coast came to be known as Missile Row in the 1960s, nASAs first manned spaceflight program was prepared for launch from Canaveral by U. S. Air Force crews. Mercurys objectives were to place a spacecraft in Earth orbit, investigate human performance and ability to function in space. Suborbital flights were launched by derivatives of the Armys Redstone missile from LC-5, Orbital flights were launched by derivatives of the Air Forces larger Atlas D missile from LC-14. The first American in orbit was John Glenn on February 20,1962, three more orbital flights followed through May 1963. Flight control for all Mercury missions was provided at the Mercury Control Center located at Canaveral near LC-14 and he had also convinced Gov. C. Farris Bryant to change the name of Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy and this resulted in some confusion in public perception, which conflated the two. This name was used through the Gemini and early Apollo programs, however, the geographical name change proved to be unpopular, owing to the historical longevity of Cape Canaveral
5.
United Launch Alliance
–
United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. ULA was formed in December 2006 by combining the teams at these companies which provide spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States, U. S. government launch customers include both the Department of Defense and NASA, as well as other organizations. With ULA, Lockheed and Boeing held a monopoly on military launches for more than a decade, until the US Air Force awarded a GPS satellite contract to SpaceX in 2016. Beginning in October 2014, ULA announced that they intended to undertake a substantial restructuring of the company, its products and processes, ULA is planning on building a new rocket that will be a successor to the Atlas V, using a new rocket engine on the first stage. In April 2015, they unveiled the new vehicle as the Vulcan, Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced their intent to form the United Launch Alliance joint venture on May 2,2005. ULA had a peak of seven space launch facilities during 2005–2011 and it announced a consolidation to five in 2008 with the intent to close two of its three Delta II pads, and closed the two-pad launch complex at Cape Canaveral after its final Delta II launch in 2011. SpaceX challenged the United States antitrust law legality of the launch services monopoly on October 23,2005, SpaceX was interested in competing for government launch contracts with the Falcon 9 rocket. The FTC gave their anti-trust clearance on October 3,2006, in November 2010, United Launch Alliance was selected by NASA for consideration for potential contract awards for heavy lift launch vehicle system concepts, and propulsion technologies. It was announced in August 2014 that Michael Gass, ULA CEO since ULA was founded in 2006, would step down immediately, ULA announced in February 2015 that they are considering undertaking domestic production of the Russian RD-180 engine at the Decatur, Alabama rocket stage manufacturing facility. The US-manufactured engines would be used only for government civil or commercial launches, Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc submitted a $2 billion offer to purchase the joint venture on September 8,2015. According to industry officials, the bid, if successful, would create a unified leadership for the company. On September 16,2015, spokesperson Todd Blecher for joint owner Boeing commented that Aerojet Rocketdynes bid was never seriously entertained and rejected the offer, in October 2014, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce in order to decrease launch costs by half. One of the reasons given for the restructuring and new cost reduction goals was competition from SpaceX. ULA intends to have preliminary design ideas in place for a blending of the Atlas V and Delta IV technology by the end of 2014, to build a successor that will allow them to cut launch costs in half. CEO Tory Bruno stated in November 2014 that he intends to transform the company and reorganize it to make it more agile, and establish new business models to adapt to the new environment. These changes will lead to improvements in how ULA interacts with its customers, ULA intends to shrink the number of company launch pads from six in 2008 and five in 2015 to only two by 2021 as they ramp down the legacy Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles. In May 2015, ULA announced it would decrease its executive ranks by 30 percent in December 2015, the management layoffs are the beginning of a major reorganization and redesign as ULA endeavours to slash costs and hunt out new customers to ensure continued growth despite the rise of SpaceX. In May 2015, ULA stated that it would go out of business unless it won commercial and civil satellite launch orders to offset an expected slump in U. S. military and spy launches
6.
Selenocentric orbit
–
In astronomy, lunar orbit refers to the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth. The Soviet Union sent the first spacecraft to the vicinity of the Moon and it passed within 6,000 kilometres of the Moons surface, but did not achieve lunar orbit. This craft provided the first pictures of the far side of the Lunar surface, the Soviet Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to actually orbit the Moon in April 1966. It studied micrometeoroid flux, and lunar environment until May 30,1966, the first United States spacecraft to orbit the Moon was Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 14,1966. The first orbit was an elliptical orbit, with an apolune of 1,008 nautical miles, then the orbit was circularized at around 170 nautical miles to obtain suitable imagery. Five such spacecraft were launched over a period of thirteen months, all of which successfully mapped the Moon, the most recent was the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, which became a ballistic impact experiment in 2014. The Apollo programs Command/Service Module remained in a parking orbit while the Lunar Module landed. The combined CSM/LM would first enter an orbit, nominally 170 nautical miles by 60 nautical miles. Orbital periods vary according to the sum of apoapsis and periapsis, the LM began its landing sequence with a Descent Orbit Insertion burn to lower their periapsis to about 50,000 feet, chosen to avoid hitting lunar mountains reaching heights of 20,000 feet. These anomalies are significant enough to cause an orbit to change significantly over the course of several days. The Apollo 11 first manned landing mission employed the first attempt to correct for the perturbation effect. The parking orbit was circularized at 66 nautical miles by 54 nautical miles, but the effect was overestimated by a factor of two, at rendezvous the orbit was calculated to be 63.2 nautical miles by 56.8 nautical miles. The Apollo 15 subsatellite PFS-1 and the Apollo 16 subsatellite PFS-2, PFS-1 ended up in a long-lasting orbit, at 28 degrees inclination, and successfully completed its mission after one and a half years. PFS-2 was placed in a particularly unstable orbital inclination of 11 degrees, list of orbits Mass concentration Orbital mechanics
7.
Semi-major axis
–
In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter, a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the widest points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis is one half of the axis, and thus runs from the centre, through a focus. Essentially, it is the radius of an orbit at the two most distant points. For the special case of a circle, the axis is the radius. One can think of the axis as an ellipses long radius. The semi-major axis of a hyperbola is, depending on the convention, thus it is the distance from the center to either vertex of the hyperbola. A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction. Thus a and b tend to infinity, a faster than b, the semi-minor axis is a line segment associated with most conic sections that is at right angles with the semi-major axis and has one end at the center of the conic section. It is one of the axes of symmetry for the curve, in an ellipse, the one, in a hyperbola. The semi-major axis is the value of the maximum and minimum distances r max and r min of the ellipse from a focus — that is. In astronomy these extreme points are called apsis, the semi-minor axis of an ellipse is the geometric mean of these distances, b = r max r min. The eccentricity of an ellipse is defined as e =1 − b 2 a 2 so r min = a, r max = a. Now consider the equation in polar coordinates, with one focus at the origin, the mean value of r = ℓ / and r = ℓ /, for θ = π and θ =0 is a = ℓ1 − e 2. In an ellipse, the axis is the geometric mean of the distance from the center to either focus. The semi-minor axis of an ellipse runs from the center of the ellipse to the edge of the ellipse, the semi-minor axis is half of the minor axis. The minor axis is the longest line segment perpendicular to the axis that connects two points on the ellipses edge. The semi-minor axis b is related to the axis a through the eccentricity e. A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction
8.
Apsis
–
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
9.
Moon
–
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
10.
Robotic spacecraft
–
A robotic spacecraft is an uncrewed spacecraft, usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost, in addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus or the vicinity of Jupiter are too hostile for human survival, given current technology. Outer planets such as Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are too distant to reach with current crewed spaceflight technology, many artificial satellites are robotic spacecraft, as are many landers and rovers. The first robotic spacecraft was launched by the Soviet Union on 22 July 1951, four other such flights were made through the fall of 1951. The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was put into a 215-by-939-kilometer Earth orbit by the USSR) on 4 October 1957, on 3 November 1957, the USSR orbited Sputnik 2. Weighing 113 kilograms, Sputnik 2 carried the first living animal into orbit, since the satellite was not designed to detach from its launch vehicles upper stage, the total mass in orbit was 508.3 kilograms. In a close race with the Soviets, the United States launched its first artificial satellite, Explorer 1, into a 193-by-1, 373-nautical-mile orbit on 31 January 1958. Explorer I was a 80. 75-inch long by 6. 00-inch diameter cyllynder weighing 30.8 pounds, compared to Sputnik 1, a 58-centimeter sphere which weighed 83.6 kilograms. Explorer 1 carried sensors which confirmed the existence of the Van Allen belts, on 17 March 1958, the US orbited its second satellite, Vanguard 1, which was about the size of a grapefruit, and remains in a 360-by-2, 080-nautical-mile orbit as of 2016. Nine other countries have successfully launched satellites using their own vehicles, France, Australia, Japan and China, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, Iran. In spacecraft design, the United States Air Force considers a vehicle to consist of the mission payload, the bus provides physical structure, thermal control, electrical power, attitude control and telemetry, tracking and commanding. JPL divides the system of a spacecraft into subsystems. These include, This is the backbone structure. It, provides overall mechanical integrity of the spacecraft ensures spacecraft components are supported and can withstand launch loads This is sometimes referred to as the command, components in the telecommunications subsystem include radio antennas, transmitters and receivers. These may be used to communicate with stations on Earth. The supply of power on spacecraft generally come from photovoltaic cells or from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Other components of the subsystem include batteries for storing power and distribution circuitry that connects components to the power sources, spacecraft are often protected from temperature fluctuations with insulation
11.
LCROSS
–
The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite was a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA. The mission was conceived as a low-cost means of determining the nature of hydrogen detected at the regions of the moon. It was successful in confirming water in the lunar crater Cabeus. It was launched together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 18,2009, as part of the shared Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, the first American mission to the Moon in over ten years. Together, LCROSS and LRO form the vanguard of NASAs return to the Moon, LCROSS was designed to collect and relay data from the impact and debris plume resulting from the launch vehicles spent Centaur upper stage striking the crater Cabeus near the south pole of the Moon. Centaur had nominal impact mass of 2,305 kg, LCROSS suffered a malfunction on August 22, depleting half of its fuel and leaving very little fuel margin in the spacecraft. Centaur impacted successfully on October 9,2009, at 11,31 UTC, the Shepherding Spacecraft descended through Centaurs ejectate plume, collected and relayed data, impacting six minutes later at 11,37 UTC. Contrary to media reports at the time, neither the impact nor its dust cloud could be seen from Earth, LCROSS was a fast-track, low-cost companion mission to the LRO. The LCROSS payload was added after NASA moved the LRO from the Delta II to a launch vehicle. It was chosen from 19 other proposals, lCROSSs mission was dedicated to late American broadcaster Walter Cronkite. LCROSS launched with the LRO aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 18,2009, at 21,32 UTC. Lunar impacts, after three orbits, occurred on October 9,2009, with the Centaur crashing into the Moon at 11,31 UTC. The mission team announced that Cabeus A would be the target crater for the LCROSS dual impacts. On its final approach to the Moon, the Shepherding Spacecraft and Centaur separated October 9,2009, the Centaur upper stage acted as a heavy impactor to create a debris plume that rose above the lunar surface. The impact velocity was projected to be 9,000 km/h or 2.5 km/second, the Centaur impact was expected to excavate more than 350 metric tons of lunar material and create a crater about 20 m in diameter to a depth of about 4 m. The Shepherding Spacecraft impact was projected to excavate an estimated 150 metric tons, most of the material in the Centaur debris plume was expected to remain at altitudes below 10 km. Mission scientists expected that the Centaur impact plume would be visible through telescopes with apertures as small as 25 to 30 cm. But no plume was observed by such amateur telescopes, even world class telescopes such as the Hale telescope, equipped with adaptive optics, did not detect the plume
12.
Lunar Precursor Robotic Program
–
The Lunar Precursor Robotic Program is a completed program of robotic spacecraft missions which NASA has used to prepare for future human spaceflight missions to the Moon by 2010. Two LPRP missions, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation, the lift off above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida was successful on June 18,2009. The unmanned Atlas V rocket launched the two space probes towards the Moon, where they provide a 3-D map and search for water in conjunction with the Hubble Space Telescope. This lunar program marks the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years, neil Armstrongs first step on the Moon occurred July 20,1969, and this launch was just 32 days shy of the 40th anniversary. Projected lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecraft is on October 9,2009 at 11,30 UT, the plume from the Centaur impact may be visible through telescopes with apertures as small as 10 to 12 inches. Initially, the LPRP program was a part of the Science Mission Directorate of NASA and was called the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program, management of the RLEP program was assigned to Goddard Space Flight Center in February,2004. At that time, the Programs goal was to. initiate a series of missions to the Moon to prepare for. In 2005, responsibility for RLEP was moved to NASAs Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, in 2006, the program was renamed to the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program and management responsibility reassigned to the Marshall Space Flight Center. The US$583 million space mission comes equipped with a $504 million state of the art 4,200 pounds LRO space probe, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is the first mission of the LPRP program. Management of LRO was assigned to Goddard Space Flight Center in 2004, LRO launched on an Atlas V401 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on June 18,2009 at 5,32 p. m. EDT. The planned lift off for 5,12 p. m. EDT was slightly delayed by 20 minutes due to thunderstorms and it will orbit the Moon for one year, gathering high resolution images of the lunar surface that will allow the creation of detailed maps. LROs goals include finding safe landing sites for human visits to the Moon, identifying lunar resources, the LRO will provide a 3-D map of the Moons surface to allow astronauts to return to the Moon by 2020. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission is co-manifested with LRO and it was selected as a secondary payload in 2006, and management of the program was assigned to Ames Research Center. The mission will explore a permanently shadowed region of a pole by crashing the 2,300 pounds spent Centaur rocket upper stage of the Atlas V launch vehicle into a dark crater. The composition of the plume will be observed by a shepherding spacecraft. NASA expects the impact velocity will be over 9,000 km/h, the ejecta plume will be in the order of 350 tons and rise 6 miles from the surface. As LRO and LCROSS send back data, the Lunar Mapping and Modeling project will use those data to develop detailed topographic maps of the lunar surface. In addition, solar radiation levels will be mapped and modeled and these integrated data will be used to make decisions about, for example, lunar outpost designs
13.
Vision for Space Exploration
–
The Vision for Space Exploration was a plan for space exploration announced on January 14,2004 by President George W. Bush. It was conceived as a response to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the state of human spaceflight at NASA and it was replaced by the space policy of the Barack Obama administration in June 2010. S. Outlining some of the advantages, U. S. President George W. NASA has also outlined plans for manned missions to the far side of the Moon, all of the Apollo missions have landed on the near side. Unique products may be producible in the nearly limitless extreme vacuum of the surface. The Moon would become a proving ground also toward the development of In-Situ Resource Utilization, the NSS believes that the Moon may be a repository of the history and possible future of our planet, and that the six Apollo landings only scratched the surface of that treasure. For example, Rep. Dave Weldon said, I think this is the best thing that has happened to the program in decades. Throughout much of 2004, it was whether the U. S. Congress would be willing to approve. However, in November 2004, Congress passed a bill which gave NASA the $16.2 billion that President Bush had sought to kick-start the Vision. According to then-NASA chief Sean OKeefe, that spending bill “was as strong an endorsement of the space exploration vision, as any of us could have imagined. ”In 2005, Congress passed S.1281, the NASA Authorization Act of 2005, which explicitly endorses the Vision. NASAs Lunar Architecture forms a key part of its Global Exploration Strategy, the first part of the Lunar Architecture is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in June 2009 on board an Atlas V. The preliminary design review was completed in February 2006 and the design review was completed in November 2006. An important function of the orbiter will be to look for evidence that the increased concentrations of hydrogen discovered at the moons poles is in the form of lunar ice. After this the flights will make use of the new Ares I. However, VSE itself is poised to propel a host of beneficial Moon science activities, including lunar telescopes, selenological studies, with or without VSE, human spaceflight will be made sustainable. However, without VSE, more funds could be directed toward reducing human spaceflight costs sufficiently for the betterment of low Earth orbit research, business, alternatively, VSE could afford advances in other scientific research, in-situ lunar business industries, and lunar-space tourism. The VSE budget required termination the Space Shuttle by 2010 and of any US role in the International Space Station by 2017 and this would have required, even in the most optimistic plans, in a period of years without human spaceflight capability from the US. Termination of the Space Shuttle program, without any planned alternatives and this severely limited any future of low earth orbit or deep space exploration. Ultimately, the lack of funding caused the VSE to fall short of its original goals
14.
Mare Nubium
–
Mare Nubium is a lunar mare in the Nubium basin on the Moons near side. The mare is located just to the southeast of Oceanus Procellarum, the basin containing Mare Nubium is believed to have been part of the Pre-Nectarian system. The mare material is of the Imbrian and Eratosthenian age, bullialdus crater, a prominent feature on the west side of the mare, is of Eratosthenian age. Other features within the mare include Pitatus on the southern margin, opelt, Gould, Kies, Nicollet, Wolf, Birt, and Rupes Recta lie within the mare. Like most of the other maria on the Moon, Mare Nubium was named by Giovanni Riccioli, previously, William Gilbert had included it among the Continens Meridionalis in his map of c.1600, and Michael Van Langren had labelled it the Mare Borbonicum in his 1645 map. The first released images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009 were of the lunar highlands 200 km south of Mare Nubium, in September 2013, Spanish astronomers observed and recorded an impact event when a large rock hit the lunar surface in Mare Nubium
15.
Space Shuttle Endeavour
–
Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASAs Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly. The United States Congress authorized the construction of Endeavour in 1987 to replace Challenger, structural spares built during the construction of Discovery and Atlantis were used in its assembly. NASA chose, on cost grounds, to build Endeavour from spares rather than refitting Enterprise or accepting a Rockwell International proposal to build two shuttles for the price of one. The orbiter is named after the British HMS Endeavour, the ship which took Captain James Cook on his first voyage of discovery and this is why the name is spelled in the British English manner, rather than the American English. This has caused confusion, including when NASA itself misspelled a sign on the pad in 2007. The Space Shuttle carried a piece of the wood from Cook’s ship inside the cockpit. The name also honored Endeavour, the Command Module of Apollo 15, Endeavour was named through a national competition involving students in elementary and secondary schools. Entries included an essay about the name, the story behind it and why it was appropriate for a NASA shuttle, Endeavour was the most popular entry, accounting for almost one-third of the state-level winners. The national winners were Senatobia Middle School in Senatobia, Mississippi, in the division and Tallulah Falls School in Tallulah Falls, Georgia. They were honored at ceremonies in Washington, D. C. including a White House ceremony where then-President George H. W. Bush presented awards to each school. Endeavour was delivered by Rockwell International Space Transportation Systems Division in May 1991 and first launched a year later, in May 1992, Rockwell International claimed that it had made no profit on Space Shuttle Endeavour, despite construction costing US$2.2 billion. On its first mission, it captured and redeployed the stranded INTELSAT VI communications satellite, the first African-American woman astronaut, Mae Jemison, was brought into space on the mission STS-47 on September 12,1992. Endeavour flew the first servicing mission STS-61 for the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, in 1997 it was withdrawn from service for eight months for a retrofit, including installation of a new airlock. In December 1998, it delivered the Unity Module to the International Space Station, Endeavours last Orbiter Major Modification period began in December 2003 and ended on October 6,2005. Morgan was the backup for Christa McAuliffe who was on the ill-fated mission STS-51-L in 1986, as it was constructed later, Endeavour was built with new hardware designed to improve and expand orbiter capabilities. Most of this equipment was incorporated into the other three orbiters during out-of-service major inspection and modification programs. Endeavour’s upgrades include, A 40-foot diameter drag chute that reduced the orbiters rollout distance by 1,000 to 2,000 feet, the plumbing and electrical connections needed for Extended Duration Orbiter modifications to allow up to a 28-day mission
16.
STS-127
–
STS-127 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station. It was the flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour. It also tied the record of thirteen people in space at any one time, the first launch attempt, on 13 June 2009, was scrubbed due to a gaseous hydrogen leak observed during tanking. A decision was made to allow the shuttle to attempt a launch on 17 June 2009. The second launch attempt on 17 June 2009 was also scrubbed due to hydrogen leak issues seen from the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate. Due to conflicts with the launch of the LRO, and due to a beta angle constraint, a successful tanking test for leak checks was performed on 1 July 2009, with modified GUCP seals allowing launch preparations to proceed as scheduled. Because of lightning strikes near the launch pad during the evening of 10 July 2009, NASA scrubbed the launch for the third time, due to a Return To Launch Site weather violation, NASA scrubbed the launch for the fourth time on the evening of 12 July 2009. STS-127s fifth launch attempt, on 13 July 2009, was scrubbed due to anvil clouds and lightning within 10 nautical miles of the launch site. STS-127 finally launched successfully on its sixth launch attempt, on 15 July 2009 at 18,03 EDT, pieces of foam were observed falling off of the External Tank during the ascent, the same occurrence that had led to the loss of Columbia in 2003. However, Endeavour only received minor scuffs to its heat shield, the shuttle landed at Kennedy Space Center 16 days later at 10,48 EDT on 31 July 2009. The exposed facility is a part of Kibo that will allow astronauts to perform experiments that are exposed to the vacuum of space. The exposed section is similar to the module on the Kibo laboratory. Once its payloads were transferred to the JEM EF, the ELM-ES was returned to the payload bay, also inside the payload bay was an Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable, containing a variety of equipment and spare components for the station. Two satellites were carried by the orbiter, for deployment when the mission ended. After release, the two picosatellites remained attached for two orbits to collect GPS data, and separated during the third orbit, one of the satellites, Pollux, is running Arduino libraries, with its payload programmed and built by students. The docking module was mounted with the DragonEye 3D Flash LIDAR ranging system manufactured by Advanced Scientific Concepts. The module was launched to test the system which will be used by the commercial SpaceX Dragon re-usable cargo carrier to send supplies to the ISS during the post-shuttle era. The Dragon spacecraft made its maiden flight in December 2010
17.
Topography
–
Topography is the study of the shape and features of the surface of the Earth and other observable astronomical objects including planets, moons, and asteroids. The topography of an area could refer to the shapes and features themselves. This field of geoscience and planetary science is concerned with detail in general, including not only relief but also natural and artificial features. This meaning is common in the United States, where topographic maps with elevation contours have made topography synonymous with relief. The older sense of topography as the study of place still has currency in Europe, topography in a narrow sense involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms. This is also known as geomorphometry, in modern usage, this involves generation of elevation data in digital form. It is often considered to include the representation of the landform on a map by a variety of techniques, including contour lines, hypsometric tints. The term topography originated in ancient Greece and continued in ancient Rome, the word comes from the Greek τόπος and -γραφία. In classical literature this refers to writing about a place or places, in Britain and in Europe in general, the word topography is still sometimes used in its original sense. Detailed military surveys in Britain were called Ordnance Surveys, and this term was used into the 20th century as generic for topographic surveys, the earliest scientific surveys in France were called the Cassini maps after the family who produced them over four generations. The term topographic surveys appears to be American in origin, the earliest detailed surveys in the United States were made by the “Topographical Bureau of the Army, ” formed during the War of 1812, which became the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838. In the 20th century, the term started to be used to describe surface description in other fields where mapping in a broader sense is used. An objective of topography is to determine the position of any feature or more generally any point in terms of both a horizontal coordinate system such as latitude, longitude, and altitude, identifying features, and recognizing typical landform patterns are also part of the field. There are a variety of approaches to studying topography, which method to use depend on the scale and size of the area under study, its accessibility, and the quality of existing surveys. Work on one of the first topographic maps was begun in France by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, in areas where there has been an extensive direct survey and mapping program, the compiled data forms the basis of basic digital elevation datasets such as USGS DEM data. This data must often be cleaned to eliminate discrepancies between surveys, but it forms a valuable set of information for large-scale analysis. The original American topographic surveys involved not only recording of relief, remote sensing is a general term for geodata collection at a distance from the subject area. Besides their role in photogrammetry, aerial and satellite imagery can be used to identify and delineate terrain features, certainly they have become more and more a part of geovisualization, whether maps or GIS systems
18.
Polar region
–
The polar regions of Earth, also known as Earths frigid zones, are the regions of Earth surrounding its geographical poles. These regions are dominated by Earths polar ice caps, the northern resting on the Arctic Ocean and the southern on the continent of Antarctica. The Arctic has various definitions, including the north of the Arctic Circle, or the region north of 60° north latitude. The Antarctic is usually defined as south of 60° south latitude, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty uses the former definition. The axial tilt of the Earth has an effect on climate of the polar regions. Since the polar regions are the farthest from the equator, they receive the least amount of sunlight and are therefore frigid, the large amount of ice and snow also reflects a large part of what little sunlight the Polar regions receive, contributing to the cold. There are many settlements in Earths north polar region, countries with claims to Arctic regions are, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and Russia. Arctic circumpolar populations often share more in common with other than with other populations within their national boundaries. As such, the polar region is diverse in human settlements. The southern polar region has no permanent human habitation, mcMurdo Station is the largest research station in Antarctica, run by the United States. Other notable stations include Palmer Station and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Esperanza Base and Marambio Base, Scott Base, while there are no indigenous human cultures, there is a complex ecosystem, especially along Antarcticas coastal zones. Coastal upwelling provides abundant nutrients which feeds krill, a type of marine crustacea, other planets and natural satellites in the solar system have interesting quirks about their polar regions. Earths Moon is thought to contain deposits of ice in deep craters in its polar regions. Mars, like Earth, has ice caps. Meanwhile, on Uranus, the tilt of the planets axis leads to the poles alternately pointing almost directly at the Sun. Man and the Conquest of the Poles, trans. by Scott Sullivan, new York, Simon & Schuster,1963
19.
Lunar water
–
Lunar water is water that is present on the Moon. Liquid water cannot persist at the Moons surface, and water vapor is decomposed by sunlight, however, scientists have since the 1960s conjectured that water ice could survive in cold, permanently shadowed craters at the Moons poles. Water molecules are also detected in the layer of gases above the lunar surface. In fact, adsorbed water is calculated to exist at trace concentrations of 10 to 1000 parts per million, in 1978 it was reported that samples returned by the Soviet Luna 24 probe contained 0. 1% water by mass sample. Inconclusive evidence of water ice at the lunar poles was accumulated from a variety of observations suggesting the presence of bound hydrogen. On 18 November 2008, the Moon Impact probe was released from Indias Chandrayaan-1 at a height of 100 kilometres, during its 25-minute descent, the impact probes Chandras Altitudinal Composition recorded evidence of water in 650 mass spectra gathered in the thin atmosphere above the Moons surface. In September 2009, NASA payload Moon Mineralogy Mapper onboard Chandrayaan-1 detected water on the Moon surface, on 24 September 2009 Science magazine reported that the Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organisations Chandrayaan-1 had detected water on the Moon. M3 detected absorption features near 2. 8–3.0 µm on the surface of the Moon, for silicate bodies, such features are typically attributed to hydroxyl- and/or water-bearing materials. On the Moon, the feature is seen as a widely distributed absorption that appears strongest at cooler high latitudes and at several fresh feldspathic craters. The general lack of correlation of this feature in sunlit M3 data with neutron spectrometer H abundance data suggests that the formation and retention of OH, oH/H2O production processes may feed polar cold traps and make the lunar regolith a candidate source of volatiles for human exploration. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a spectrometer, was one of the 11 instruments on board Chandrayaan-1. M3 was aimed at providing the first mineral map of the lunar surface. Lunar scientists had discussed the possibility of water repositories for decades and they are now increasingly confident that the decades-long debate is over a report says. The Moon, in fact, has water in all sorts of places, not just locked up in minerals, but scattered throughout the broken-up surface, the results from the Chandrayaan mission are also offering a wide array of watery signals. Apollo Program The possibility of ice in the floors of polar lunar craters was first suggested in 1961 by Caltech researchers Kenneth Watson, however, a 2008 study of lunar rock samples revealed evidence of water molecules trapped in volcanic glass beads. The first direct evidence of water vapor near the Moon was obtained by the Apollo 14 ALSEP Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment, SIDE, a series of bursts of water vapor ions were observed by the instrument mass spectrometer at the lunar surface near the Apollo 14 landing site. Luna 24 In February 1978 Soviet scientists M. Akhmanova, B, dementev, and M. Markov of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytic Chemistry published a paper claiming a detection of water fairly definitively. Clementine mission A proposed evidence of ice on the Moon came in 1994 from the United States military Clementine probe
20.
Ionizing radiation
–
Ionizing radiation is radiation that carries enough energy to free electrons from atoms or molecules, thereby ionizing them. Ionizing radiation is made up of energetic particles, ions or atoms moving at high speeds. The boundary between ionizing and non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation that occurs in the ultraviolet is not sharply defined, since different molecules, conventional definition places the boundary at a photon energy between 10 eV and 33 eV in the ultraviolet. Typical ionizing subatomic particles from radioactivity include alpha particles, beta particles, almost all products of radioactive decay are ionizing because the energy of radioactive decay is typically far higher than that required to ionize. Cosmic rays are generated by stars and certain events such as supernova explosions. Cosmic rays may also produce radioisotopes on Earth, which in turn decay, cosmic rays and the decay of radioactive isotopes are the primary sources of natural ionizing radiation on Earth referred to as background radiation. Ionizing radiation can also be generated artificially using X-ray tubes, particle accelerators, ionizing radiation is invisible and not directly detectable by human senses, so radiation detection instruments such as Geiger counters are required to detect it. However, it can cause emission of light upon interaction with matter, such as in Cherenkov radiation. Exposure to ionizing radiation damage to living tissue, and can result in mutation, radiation sickness, cancer. Ionizing radiation is categorized by the nature of the particles or electromagnetic waves that create the ionizing effect and these have different ionization mechanisms, and may be grouped as directly or indirectly ionizing. Any charged massive particle can ionize atoms directly by fundamental interaction through the Coulomb force if it carries sufficient kinetic energy and this includes atomic nuclei, electrons, muons, charged pions, protons, and energetic charged nuclei stripped of their electrons. When moving at relativistic speeds these particles have enough energy to be ionizing. For example, an alpha particle is ionizing, but moves at about 5% c. Natural cosmic rays are made up primarily of protons but also include heavier atomic nuclei like helium ions. Pions can also be produced in large amounts in particle accelerators, alpha particles consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium nucleus. Alpha particle emissions are produced in the process of alpha decay. Alpha particles are named after the first letter in the Greek alphabet, the symbol for the alpha particle is α or α2+. Because they are identical to helium nuclei, they are sometimes written as He2+ or 4 2He2+ indicating a Helium ion with a +2 charge
21.
Ultraviolet
–
Ultraviolet is an electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength from 10 nm to 400 nm, shorter than that of visible light but longer than X-rays. UV radiation constitutes about 10% of the light output of the Sun. It is also produced by electric arcs and specialized lights, such as lamps, tanning lamps. Consequently, the effects of UV are greater than simple heating effects. Suntan, freckling and sunburn are familiar effects of over-exposure, along with risk of skin cancer. Living things on dry land would be damaged by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun if most of it were not filtered out by the Earths atmosphere. More-energetic, shorter-wavelength extreme UV below 121 nm ionizes air so strongly that it is absorbed before it reaches the ground, Ultraviolet is also responsible for the formation of bone-strengthening vitamin D in most land vertebrates, including humans. The UV spectrum thus has both beneficial and harmful to human health. Ultraviolet rays are invisible to most humans, the lens in a human eye ordinarily filters out UVB frequencies or higher, and humans lack color receptor adaptations for ultraviolet rays. Under some conditions, children and young adults can see ultraviolet down to wavelengths of about 310 nm, near-UV radiation is visible to some insects, mammals, and birds. Small birds have a fourth color receptor for ultraviolet rays, this gives birds true UV vision, reindeer use near-UV radiation to see polar bears, who are poorly visible in regular light because they blend in with the snow. UV also allows mammals to see urine trails, which is helpful for animals to find food in the wild. The males and females of some species look identical to the human eye. Ultraviolet means beyond violet, violet being the color of the highest frequencies of visible light, Ultraviolet has a higher frequency than violet light. He called them oxidizing rays to emphasize chemical reactivity and to them from heat rays. The terms chemical and heat rays were eventually dropped in favour of ultraviolet and infrared radiation, in 1878 the effect of short-wavelength light on sterilizing bacteria was discovered. By 1903 it was known the most effective wavelengths were around 250 nm, in 1960, the effect of ultraviolet radiation on DNA was established. The discovery of the ultraviolet radiation below 200 nm, named vacuum ultraviolet because it is absorbed by air, was made in 1893 by the German physicist Victor Schumann
22.
Solar System
–
The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets, with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets, of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons, two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the mass is in the Sun. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being composed of rock. The four outer planets are giant planets, being more massive than the terrestrials. All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a flat disc called the ecliptic. The Solar System also contains smaller objects, the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptunes orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, within these populations are several dozen to possibly tens of thousands of objects large enough that they have been rounded by their own gravity. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets, identified dwarf planets include the asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds. Six of the planets, at least four of the dwarf planets, each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, the heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium, it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, the Solar System is located in the Orion Arm,26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System, the invention of the telescope led to the discovery of further planets and moons. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99. 86% of the known mass. The Suns four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the mass, with Jupiter. The remaining objects of the Solar System together comprise less than 0. 002% of the Solar Systems total mass, most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earths orbit, known as the ecliptic
23.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera
–
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO has been described as essential for planning NASAs future human and its detailed mapping program is identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technologies. LRO and LCROSS were launched as part of the United Statess Vision for Space Exploration program, the probe has made a 3-D map of the Moons surface at 100-meter resolution and 98. 2% coverage, including 0. 5-meter resolution images of Apollo landing sites. The first images from LRO were published on July 2,2009, the total cost of the mission is reported as US$583 million, of which $504 million pertains to the main LRO probe and $79 million to the LCROSS satellite. Developed at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, LRO is a large and its mission duration was planned for one year, but has since been extended numerous times after review by NASA. After completing a design review in February 2006 and a critical design review in November 2006. Launch was planned for October 2008, but this slid to April as the spacecraft underwent testing in a vacuum chamber. Launch was rescheduled for June 17,2009, because of the delay in a priority military launch, the one-day delay was to allow the Space Shuttle Endeavour a chance to lift off for mission STS-127 following a hydrogen fuel leak that canceled an earlier planned launch. In addition, LRO has provided some of the first images and precise locations of landers and equipment from previous American and Russian lunar missions, Diviner The Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment measures lunar surface thermal emission to provide information for future surface operations and exploration. LEND The Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector provides measurements, creates maps, LOLA The Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter investigation provides a precise global lunar topographic model and geodetic grid. LROC The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera addresses the measurement requirements of landing site certification, LROC comprises a pair of narrow-angle push-broom imaging cameras and a single wide-angle camera. The mission is returning approximately 70–100 terabytes of image data and it is expected that this photography will boost public acknowledgement of the validity of the landings, and further discredit Apollo conspiracy theories. Mini-RF The Miniature Radio Frequency radar demonstrated new lightweight SAR and communications technologies, prior to the LROs launch, NASA gave members of the public the opportunity to have their names placed in a microchip on the LRO. The deadline for this opportunity was July 31,2008, about 1.6 million names were submitted. On June 23,2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter entered into orbit around the Moon after a journey from the Earth. When launched, the spacecraft was aimed at a point ahead of the Moons position, a mid-course correction was required during the trip in order for the spacecraft to correctly enter Lunar orbit. Once the spacecraft reached the far side of the Moon, its motor was fired in order for it to be captured by the Moons gravity into an elliptical lunar orbit. A series of four rocket burns over the four days put the satellite into its commissioning phase orbit where each instrument was brought online
24.
Apollo program
–
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
25.
Lunar landing
–
A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions, the first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Unions Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969, there have been six manned U. S. landings and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from 22 August 1976 until 14 December 2013. To date, the United States is the country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon. Since then, twelve Soviet and U. S. spacecraft have used braking rockets to make landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the surface during the Luna 9. The U. S. followed with five unmanned Surveyor soft landings, the Soviet Union achieved the first unmanned lunar soil sample return with the Luna 16 probe on 24 September 1970. This was followed by Luna 20 and Luna 24 in 1972 and 1976, following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first Lunokhod, Luna E-8 No.201, the Luna 17 and Luna 21 were successful unmanned lunar rover missions in 1970 and 1973. Many missions were failures at launch, in addition, several unmanned landing missions achieved the Lunar surface but were unsuccessful, including, Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed on landing, and the U. S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing, more recently, other nations have crashed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon at speeds of around 8,000 kilometres per hour, often at precise, planned locations. These have generally been end-of-life lunar orbiters that, because of system degradations, japans lunar orbiter Hiten impacted the Moons surface on 10 April 1993. The European Space Agency performed a controlled impact with their orbiter SMART-1 on 3 September 2006. Indian Space Research Organisation performed a controlled impact with its Moon Impact Probe on 14 November 2008. The MIP was a probe from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. The Chinese lunar orbiter Change 1 executed a crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission Change 3 was launched on 1 December 2013, a total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface, all Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions had a rover for increased mobility, in order to go to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave the gravity well of the Earth
26.
List of Apollo missions
–
The Apollo program included both manned and unmanned space missions, flown by NASA between 1961 and 1975. They culminated with a series of manned Moon landings between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo program used four types of launch vehicles, Little Joe II – unmanned suborbital launch escape system development. Saturn I – unmanned suborbital and orbital hardware development, Saturn IB – preparatory unmanned missions, and Apollo 7, the first manned mission. Saturn V – unmanned and manned earth orbit and lunar missions, the Marshall Space Flight Center, which designed the Saturn rockets, referred to the flights as Saturn-Apollo, while Kennedy Space Center referred to the flights as Apollo-Saturn. This is why the unmanned Saturn 1 flights are referred to as SA, dates given below are dates of launch. From 1961 to 1968, the Saturn launch vehicles and components of the Apollo spacecraft were tested in unmanned flights, from August 1963 to January 1966 a number of tests were conducted for development of the launch escape system. This manned flight was to have followed the first three unmanned flights, the first manned Apollo mission was thus Apollo 7. Simple Apollo numbers were never assigned to the first three unmanned flights, although renaming AS-201, AS-202 and AS-203 as Apollo 1-A, Apollo 2, block I crew positions for Apollo 1 were designated Command Pilot, Senior Pilot, and Pilot. This flight was cancelled during the first Apollo 11 landing mission, shortly thereafter, Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled in response to Congressional cuts in NASAs budget. Several of the missions involved extravehicular activity, space walks or Moon walks outside of the spacecraft, www. astronomytoday. com List of Missions Project Apollo Archive
27.
Lunar rover
–
A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. Five countries have had rovers on the Moon, the Soviet Union, the panels were designed by Electronic and Communication Engineer Bryan Mapúa. The spacecraft which carried Lunokhod 1 was named Luna 17, the spacecraft soft-landed on the Moon in the Sea of Rains on November 1970. Lunokhod was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another celestial body, having worked for 11 months, Lunokhod 1 held the durability record for space rovers for more than 30 years, until a new record was set by the Mars Exploration Rovers. The Lunar Roving Vehicle was a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon during the last three missions of the American Apollo program during 1971 and 1972, the LRV could carry one or two astronauts, their equipment, and lunar samples. Lunokhod 2 was the second and a monocrystalline-panel-powered of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of the Lunokhod program, the Luna 21 spacecraft landed on the Moon and deployed the second Soviet lunar rover Lunokhod 2 in January 1973. Lunokhod 2 intended to be followed by Lunokhod 3 in 1977, Yutu is a Chinese lunar rover which launched on 1 December 2013 and landed on 14 December 2013 as part of the Change 3 mission. It is Chinas first lunar rover, part of the phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program undertaken by China National Space Administration. The lunar rover is called Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, a name selected in an online poll. The rover encountered operational difficulties after the first 14-day lunar night, the Yutu rover might be the worlds first true hibernating robot on the moon. Barcelona Moon Team is a participating in the Google Lunar X Prize. Astrobotic Technology, a company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, plans to send a rover to the Moon in late 2017. Chinese mission with a launch date before 2020. The Chandrayaan-2 mission is the first lunar mission by India, consisting of a lunar orbiter. The rover weighing 50 kg, will have six wheels and will be running on solar power and it will land near one of the poles and will operate for a year, roving up to 150 km at a maximum speed of 360 m/h. The proposed launch date of the mission is 2018, planned Japanese robotic mission to the Moon will include an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It is expected to be launched in 2017, NASAs plans for future moon missions call for rovers that have a far longer range than the Apollo rovers. The All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer is a robotic lunar rover test-bed under development by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
28.
Apollo Lunar Module
–
After completing its mission, the LM was discarded. It was capable of only in outer space, structurally and aerodynamically it was incapable of flight through the Earths atmosphere. The Lunar Module was the first manned spacecraft to operate exclusively in the vacuum of space. It was the first, and to date only, crewed vehicle to land on an object in the solar system other than the Earth. Six such craft successfully landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972, a seventh provided propulsion and life support for the crew of Apollo 13 when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon. The LMs development was plagued with problems which delayed its first unmanned flight by about ten months, despite this, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle, the only component never to suffer a failure that significantly affected a mission. The total cost of the LM for development and the produced was $21. 3B in 2016 dollars. At launch, the Lunar Module sat directly beneath the Command/Service Module with legs folded, there it remained through earth parking orbit and the Trans Lunar Injection rocket burn to send the craft toward the Moon. Soon after TLI, the SLA opened and the CSM separated, turned around, came back to dock with the Lunar Module, during the flight to the Moon, the docking hatches were opened and the LM Pilot entered the LM to temporarily power up and test its systems. Throughout the flight, he performed the role of an engineering officer, at this point, the engine was started again for Powered Descent Initiation. During this time the crew flew on their backs, depending on the computer to slow the crafts forward, Control was exercised with a combination of engine throttling and attitude thrusters, guided by the computer with the aid of landing radar. During the braking phase altitude decreased to approximately 10,000 feet, during final approach, the vehicle pitched over to a near-vertical position, allowing the crew to look forward and down to see the lunar surface for the first time. Finally the landing began, approximately 2,000 feet uprange of the targeted landing site. Beginning with Apollo 14, increased LM fuel was available for the powered descent and landing, by using the CSM engine to achieve the 50. After the spacecraft undocked, the CSM raised and circularized its orbit for the remainder of the mission. When ready to leave the Moon, the LM would separate the descent stage and fire the ascent engine to back into orbit. After a few course correction burns, the LM would rendezvous with the CSM and dock for transfer of the crew, having completed its job, the LM was separated and sent into solar orbit or to crash into the Moon. The Lunar Module was designed after NASA chose to reach the Moon via Lunar Orbit Rendezvous instead of the ascent or Earth Orbit Rendezvous methods
29.
Apollo Moon Landing hoax theories
–
The most notable claim is that the six manned landings were faked and that twelve Apollo astronauts did not actually walk on the Moon. Much third-party evidence for the landings exists, and detailed rebuttals to the claims have been made. Since the late 2000s, high-definition photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Apollo landing sites have captured the lander modules, conspiracists have managed to sustain public interest in their theories for more than 40 years, despite the rebuttals and third-party evidence. Opinion polls taken in various locations have shown that between 6% and 20% of Americans and 28% of Russians surveyed believe that the landings were faked. Even as late as 2001, the Fox television network documentary Conspiracy Theory, claimed NASA faked the first landing in 1969 to win the Space Race. An early and influential book about the subject of a conspiracy, We Never Went to the Moon. He served as head of the publications unit at the companys Propulsion Field Laboratory until 1963. Kaysings book made many allegations, and effectively began discussion of the Moon landings being faked and she notes that this happened during the post-Watergate era, when American citizens were inclined to distrust official accounts. Dégh writes, The mass media catapult these half-truths into a kind of twilight zone where people can make their guesses sound as truths, mass media have a terrible impact on people who lack guidance. In A Man on the Moon, first published in 1994, Andrew Chaikin mentions that at the time of Apollo 8s lunar-orbit mission in December 1968, the big problem is getting people there. He suggests that NASA sent robot missions because radiation levels in space would be deadly. William L. Brian – a nuclear engineer who self-published a book in 1982, Moongate, Space Program, in which he disputes the Moons surface gravity. James M. Collier – American journalist and writer, producer of the video Was It Only a Paper Moon, milton William Cooper – was an American conspiracy theorist and author. He believed that all of the Apollo missions to the Moon were actually carefully rehearsed productions that were filmed in large sound stages. James H. Fetzer – retired American philosophy professor and conspiracy theorist, on May 2,2013, Dr. Fetzer was interviewed by Dr. Sterling Harwood. Fetzer defended his conspiracist views that all six lunar landings were hoaxes, David Groves – works for Quantech Image Processing. He examined the photo of Aldrin emerging from the lander and said he can pinpoint when a spotlight was used. Using the focal length of the lens and an actual boot, he allegedly calculated, using ray-tracing
30.
Mini-RF
–
The Miniature Radio-Frequency instrument is a synthetic aperture radar instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently in orbit around the Moon. It has a resolution of 30 m/pixel and two bands, a primary band at 12.6 cm and a secondary band at 4.2 cm. Previous SAR instruments, such as the radar on the Magellan mission to Venus, were large, massive, power-hungry, intended as a demonstration of cheap, lightweight SAR technology, the Mini-RF instrument was designed in response to these concerns. Because it was a demonstration, Mini-RF is sometimes not included in lists of LROs instruments. Although the LCROSS mission, which crashed a probe into the lunar surface to look for water, detected water in Cabeus Crater. In January,2011, after completion of Mini-RFs primary mission objectives, the receiver continues working, allowing occasional bistatic radar measurements, where the radar signal is transmitted from the Earth, reflected off the Moon, and received by the Mini-RF. Nasa Radar Tandem Searches For Ice On The Moon
31.
Synthetic aperture radar
–
Synthetic aperture radar is a form of radar that is used to create two- or 3-dimensional images of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a region to provide finer spatial resolution than conventional beam-scanning radars. SAR is typically mounted on a platform such as an aircraft or spacecraft. The distance the SAR device travels over a target in the time taken for the pulses to return to the antenna creates the large synthetic antenna aperture. To create a SAR image, successive pulses of waves are transmitted to illuminate a target scene. The pulses are transmitted and the echoes received using a single beam-forming antenna, as the SAR device on board the aircraft or spacecraft moves, the antenna location relative to the target changes with time. The properties of SAR can be described as having high resolution capability which is independent of flight altitude, SAR also have a great day and night imaging capability considering their own illumination. SAR images have wide applications in sensing and mapping of the surfaces of both the Earth and other planets. Volcano and earthquake monitoring is a part of differential interferometry and it is also useful in environment monitoring like oil spills, flooding, urban growth, global change and military surveillance which includes strategic policy and tactical assessment. SAR can also be implemented as inverse SAR by observing a moving target over a time with a stationary antenna. A Synthetic Aperture Radar is a radar mounted on a moving platform. Electromagnetic waves are transmitted and reflected echoes are collected, digitized and stored by the radar antenna for later processing. As transmission and reception occur at different time, they map to different positions, the well ordered combination of the received signals builds a virtual aperture that is much longer than the physical antenna length. This is why it is named synthetic aperture, giving it the property of being an imaging radar, the 3D processing is done in two steps, the azimuth and range direction are focussed for the generation of 2D high resolution images. After which a digital model is used to measure the phase differences between complex images which is determined from different look angles to recover the height information. This height information, along with the coordinates provided by 2-D SAR focusing. The first step requires only standard processing algorithms, for the step a additional pre-processing stage such as image co-registration. In addition to this, multiple baselines can be used to extend 3D imaging to the time dimension, the SAR algorithm, as given here, applies to phased arrays generally
32.
Far side of the Moon
–
The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that always faces away from Earth. The far sides terrain is rugged, with a multitude of impact craters and it has one of the largest craters in the Solar System, the South Pole–Aitken basin. About 18 percent of the far side is visible from Earth due to libration. The remaining 82 percent remained unobserved until 1959, when the Soviet Unions Luna 3 space probe photographed it, the Soviet Academy of Sciences published the first atlas of the far side in 1960. In 1968, the Apollo 8 missions astronauts were the first humans to view this region directly when they orbited the Moon, to date, no human being has ever stood on the surface of the far side of the Moon. Astronomers have suggested installing a large telescope on the far side. Tidal forces from Earth have slowed down the Moons rotation so that the side is always facing the Earth. The other face, most of which is never visible from the Earth, is called the far side of the Moon. Over time some parts of the far side can be due to libration. In total 59 percent of the Moons surface is visible from Earth at one time or another, useful observation of the parts of the far side of the Moon occasionally visible from Earth is difficult because of the low viewing angle from Earth. While many misconstrue this to think that the dark side receives little to no sunlight, in reality, however, the near side also receives sunlight reflected from the Earth, known as earthshine. Earthshine does not reach the area of the far side which cannot be seen from Earth, only during a full moon is the whole far side of the Moon dark. The word dark has expanded to refer to the fact that communication with spacecraft can be blocked while on the far side of the Moon. The two hemispheres have distinctly different appearances, with the near side covered in multiple, large maria, the far side has a battered, densely cratered appearance with few maria. Only 1% of the surface of the far side is covered by maria and it has also been proposed that the differences between the two hemispheres may have been caused by a collision with a smaller companion moon that also originated from the Theia collision. The far side has more visible craters and this was thought to be a result of the effects of lunar lava flows, which cover and obscure craters, rather than a shielding effect from the Earth. NASA calculates that the Earth obscures only about 4 square degrees out of 41,000 square degrees of the sky as seen from the Moon and this makes the Earth negligible as a shield for the Moon. Newer research suggests that the reason the side of the moon facing Earth has fewer impact craters is heat from Earth at the time when the Moon was formed, the lunar crust consists primarily of plagioclases formed when aluminium and calcium condensed and combined with silicates in the mantle
33.
Cabeus (crater)
–
Cabeus is a lunar crater that is located about 100 km from the south pole of the Moon. At this location the crater is seen obliquely from Earth, hence, not much detail can be seen of this crater, even from orbit. Through a telescope, this crater appears near the limb of the Moon, to the west of the crater Malapert. The crater name Cabeus first appeared in the 1651 work Almagestum Novum by Giovanni Riccioli, however, the position of the Cabeus crater was in the location later assigned to Newton crater. The official name and location for this crater was adopted by the IAU Commission 17, as established in the 1935 work Named Lunar Formations by Mary A. Blagg and this crater is a worn formation that has been eroded by subsequent impacts. The rim is eroded and uneven, with prominent ridges at the northern and southern ends, a small crater lies across the northeastern rim and there is 10–11 km crater on the interior floor near the west-southwestern rim. Near the center of the floor is a small ridge. The floor of the crater has a depth of 4 km. The slope of the walls is 10–15°. Because of the location near the lunar south pole, the main part of the crater is illuminated by the Sun during only 25% of each lunar day. The inner walls receive illumination for 30% of a lunar day, the south polar region of the Moon was surveyed by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft and a hydrogen signature was detected. Potential sources for this hydrogen include water deposits from comet or meteorite impacts and this crater is sufficiently large that the temperature within the shaded region is below 100 K. This would allow ice to remain on or near the crater surface for billions of years without sublimating. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched the LCROSS, impactor spacecraft on 18 June 2009, on 28 September 2009, Cabeus proper was selected as the impact target for the LCROSS mission, switching the target from satellite crater Cabeus A. The change was made after review of the latest data gathered by other lunar exploration craft, at 11,31 UTC on 9 October 2009 the Centaur upper stage of its Atlas V carrier rocket impacted Cabeus, followed shortly thereafter by the impact of the LCROSS spacecraft itself. The impact of the Centaur was intended to throw up a plume of lunar material to be sampled by sensors carried on the LCROSS spacecraft as it traversed the plume. But the debris plumes were smaller than predicted, preliminary data from the LCROSS spectrometer measurements of the impact plume appeared to confirm the presence of water in the crater. Analysis of the plume observations supports the presence of water in the regolith, absorption in the near-infrared can be attributed to ice and water vapor, while emissions in the ultraviolet indicate the presence of hydroxyl radicals, which also supports the likelihood of water
34.
Hydroxyl
–
A hydroxy or hydroxyl group is the entity with the formula OH. It contains oxygen bonded to hydrogen, in organic chemistry, alcohol and carboxylic acids contain hydroxy groups. The anion, called hydroxide, consists of a hydroxy group, according to IUPAC rules, the term hydroxyl refers to the radical OH only, while the functional group −OH is called hydroxy group. Water, alcohols, carboxylic acids, and many other hydroxy-containing compounds can be deprotonated readily and this behavior is rationalized by the disparate electronegativities of oxygen and hydrogen. Hydroxy-containing compounds engage in hydrogen bonding, which causes them to stick together, organic compounds, which are often poorly soluble in water, become water soluble when they contain two or more hydroxy groups, as illustrated by sugars and amino acid. The hydroxy group is pervasive in chemistry and biochemistry, many inorganic compounds contain hydroxy groups, including sulfuric acid, the chemical compound produced on the largest scale industrially. Hydroxy groups participate in the reactions that link simple biological molecules into long chains. The joining of a fatty acid to glycerol to form a triacylglycerol removes the −OH from the end of the fatty acid. The joining of two aldehyde sugars to form a disaccharide removes the −OH from the group at the aldehyde end of one sugar. The creation of a bond to link two amino acids to make a protein removes the −OH from the carboxy group of one amino acid. Hydroxyl radicals are highly reactive and undergo chemical reactions that make them short-lived, when biological systems are exposed to hydroxyl radicals, they can cause damage to cells, including those in humans, where they react with DNA, lipids, and proteins. In 2009, Indias Chandrayaan-1 satellite, NASAs Cassini spacecraft and the Deep Impact probe have each detected the presence of water by evidence of hydroxyl fragments on the Moon. As reported by Richard Kerr, A spectrometer detected an infrared absorption at a wavelength of 3.0 micrometers that only water or hydroxyl—a hydrogen, NASA also reported in 2009 that the LCROSS probe revealed an ultraviolet emission spectrum consistent with hydroxyl presence. The Venus Express orbiter sent back Venus science data from April 2006 until December 2014, results from Venus Express include the detection of hydroxyl in the atmosphere. Hydronium Ion Oxide Reece, Jane, Urry, Lisa, Cain, Michael, Wasserman, Steven, Minorsky, Peter, Jackson, berge, Susan, Golden, Brandy, Triglia, Logan
35.
Orientale basin
–
Mare Orientale is a lunar mare. It is located on the border of the Moons nearside and is difficult to see from an Earthbound perspective. Images from spacecraft have revealed it to be one of the most striking large scale lunar features, during the 1960s, rectified images of Mare Orientale by Gerard Kuiper at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory gave rise to the notion of it being an impact crater. Compared with most other basins, Mare Orientale is less flooded by mare basalts. The basalt in the portion of the Orientale basin is probably less than 1 km in thickness which is much less than mare basins on the earth-facing side of the moon. The collision caused ripples in the lunar crust, resulting in the three concentric circular features, the innermost rings of this vast, multi-ringed crater are the inner and outer Montes Rook, and the outermost ring are the Montes Cordillera,930 km in diameter. Outward from here, ejecta extend some 500 km from the foot of the mountains and form a surface with hummocks. The Apollo program did not sample rocks from Mare Orientale so its precise age is not known, however, it is the Moons most recent impact basin, probably rather younger than the Imbrium Basin, which is about 3.85 billion years old. The surrounding basin material is of the Lower Imbrian epoch with the material being of the Upper Imbrian epoch. Located at the antipode of Mare Orientale is Mare Marginis, a mass concentration, or gravitational high, was identified in the center of Mare Orientale from Doppler tracking of the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1968. The mascon was confirmed and mapped at higher resolution with later orbiters such as Lunar Prospector, Mare Orientale is difficult to observe from Earth, as it lies at the extreme western edge of the near side. All that can be seen are the rough mountain ranges—the Montes Rook, however, the Moons libration means that on rare occasions Mare Orientale is turned slightly more toward the Earth, and becomes a little more discernible. Although various astronomers had observed hints of the mare, it was first fully described by the German astronomer Julius Franz in his 1906 book Der Mond, Franz also gave the mare its name. At the time, it was located on what by convention was considered the side of the Moon. It is on the side of the Moon as viewed from Earth. In 1961, however, the International Astronomical Union adopted the convention for East and West on the Moon. However, Moore credits Franz as discoverer in his 2009 Yearbook of Astronomy
36.
Bistatic radar
–
Bistatic radar is the name given to a radar system which comprises a transmitter and receiver which are separated by a distance that is comparable to the expected target distance. Conversely, a radar in which the transmitter and receiver are collocated is called a monostatic radar, a system containing multiple spatially diverse monostatic radar or bistatic radar components with a shared area of coverage is called multistatic radar. Many long-range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems use semi-active radar homing which is a form of bistatic radar and this is a special case of bistatic radar, known as a forward scatter radar, after the mechanism by which the transmitted energy is scattered by the target. The RCS in this mode is calculated as σ=4πA²/λ², where A is the silhouette area and it is a generalisation of the bistatic radar system, with one or more receivers processing returns from one or more geographically separated transmitter. A bistatic or multistatic radar that exploits non-radar transmitters of opportunity is termed a passive coherent location system or passive covert radar, any radar which does not send active electronic magnetic pulse is known as passive radar. Passive coherent location also known as PCL is a type of passive radar. Bistatic Doppler shift Bistatic angle Bistatic imaging Bistatic range Bistatic sonar
37.
Mona Lisa
–
The painting is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517 and it was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797. Mona in Italian is a form of address originating as ma donna – similar to Ma’am, Madam. This became madonna, and its contraction mona, the title of the painting, though traditionally spelled Mona, is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as Monna Lisa but this is rare in English. Vasaris account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550,31 years after the artists death and it has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardos assistant Salaì, at his death in 1525, owned a portrait which in his papers was named la Gioconda. Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardos contemporary Agostino Vespucci and this note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo. The model, Lisa del Giocondo, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, the painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means jocund or, literally, the jocund one, in French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning. Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting, some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari. Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting, the consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion, that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo. Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, although the Louvre states that it was doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506, the art historian Martin Kemp says there are some difficulties in confirming the actual dates with certainty. According to Leonardos contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, after he had lingered over it four years, Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted never having completed a single work. In 1516, Leonardo was invited by King François I to work at the Clos Lucé near the castle in Amboise. It is believed that he took the Mona Lisa with him, bambach has concluded that da Vinci probably continued refining the work until 1516 or 1517. Upon his death, the painting was inherited with other works by his pupil, Francis I bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Palace of Fontainebleau, where it remained until Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre, during the Franco-Prussian War it was moved from the Louvre to the Brest Arsenal. In December 2015, it was reported that French scientist Pascal Cotte had found a hidden portrait underneath the surface of the painting using reflective light technology, the portrait is an underlying image of a model looking off to the side
38.
Chandrayaan-1
–
Chandrayaan-1 (Sanskrit, चन्द्रयान-१, was Indias first lunar probe. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, the mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor. India launched the spacecraft using a PSLV-XL rocket, serial number C11, on 22 October 2008 at 00,52 UTC from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the project on course in his Independence Day speech on 15 August 2003. The mission was a major boost to Indias space program, as India researched and developed its own technology in order to explore the Moon, the vehicle was successfully inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008. The probe hit near the crater Shackleton at 15,01 UTC, the estimated cost for the project was ₹3.86 billion. The remote sensing lunar satellite had a mass of 1,380 kg at launch and 675 kg in lunar orbit and it carried high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, and soft and hard X-ray frequencies. Over a two-year period, it was intended to survey the lunar surface to produce a map of its chemical characteristics. The polar regions are of special interest as they contain ice. The lunar mission carried five ISRO payloads and six payloads from other agencies including NASA, ESA, and the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency. Among its many achievements, the greatest achievement was the discovery of the presence of water molecules in the lunar soil. Chandrayaan operated for 312 days as opposed to the two years but the mission achieved 95% of its planned objectives. On 2 July 2016, NASA used ground-based radar systems to relocate Chandrayaan-1 in its lunar orbit, repeated observations over the next three months allowed a precise determination of its orbit. Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the Chandrayaan project on course in his Independence Day speech on 15 August 2003, the mission was a major boost to Indias space program. The idea of an Indian scientific mission to the Moon was first mooted in 1999 during a meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Astronautical Society of India carried forward the idea in 2000. Soon after, the Indian Space Research Organisation set up the National Lunar Mission Task Force which concluded that ISRO has the expertise to carry out an Indian mission to the Moon. Six months later, in November, the Indian government gave the nod for the mission, dimensions Cuboid in shape of approximately 1.5 m Communications X band,0.7 m diameter dual gimballed parabolic antenna for payload data transmission. The Telemetry, Tracking & Command communication operates in S band frequency, propulsion The spacecraft used a bipropellant integrated propulsion system to reach lunar orbit as well as orbit and altitude maintenance while orbiting the Moon. The power plant consisted of one 440 N engine and eight 22 N thrusters, fuel and oxidiser were stored in two tanks of 390 litres each
_01.png){kind=logo}
_launches_with_LRO_and_LCROSS.jpg)
.jpg)
.
