1.
Ranger School
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The United States Army Ranger School is an intense 61-day combat leadership course oriented toward small-unit tactics. It has been called the most physically and mentally demanding leadership school the Army has to offer and it is open to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines in the US Armed Forces, as well as allied military students. Ranger training began in 1950 and has undergone changes to its training regimen. A Desert Phase was employed for about a decade between the 1980s and 1990s and its removal left the three phases used in the 21st century, Darby, Mountains, and Florida. The course is conducted in various locations, Training in the Benning Phase occurs in and around Camp Rogers and Camp Darby at Fort Benning, Georgia. Training at the Mountain Phase is conducted at Camp Merrill, in the mountains near Dahlonega. The Florida Phase is conducted at locations near Camp Rudder, Eglin Air Force Base. The Desert Phase—conducted initially at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the United States Army Ranger School is not organizationally affiliated with the 75th Ranger Regiment. The two share a heritage and subordinate battalions common lineage, and Ranger School is a requirement for all officers. The cloth version of the tab is worn on the Army Combat Uniform and Class-A dress uniform of the U. S. Army, Ranger Training began in September 1950 at Fort Benning Georgia with the formation and training of 17 Airborne Companies by the Ranger Training Command. The first class graduated from Ranger training in November 1950, becoming the 1st Ranger Infantry Company, the United States Armys Infantry School officially established the Ranger Department in December 1951. Under the Ranger Department, the first Ranger School Class was conducted in January–March 1952, at the time, Ranger training was voluntary. In 1966, a panel headed by General Ralph E. Haines Jr. recommended making Ranger training mandatory for all Regular Army officers upon commissioning, on 16 August 1966, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Harold K. Johnson, directed it so. This policy was implemented in July 1967 and it was rescinded on 21 June 1972 by General William Westmoreland. Once again, Ranger training was voluntary, in August 1987, the Ranger Department was split from the Infantry School and the Ranger Training Brigade was established. The Ranger Companies that made up the Ranger Department became the current training units—the 4th, 5th and 6th Ranger Training Battalions, in 1983, the Desert Phase was added and the length of the Ranger course was extended to 65 days. The duration was expanded in October 1991 to 68 days. The 7th Ranger Training Battalion was added to administer this phase, the most recent duration change to Ranger School occurred in May 1995, when the Desert Phase was removed from the Ranger course
2.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in La Cañada Flintridge, California and Pasadena, California, United States. The JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology for NASA, the laboratorys primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASAs Deep Space Network and they are also responsible for managing the JPL Small-Body Database, and provides physical data and lists of publications for all known small Solar System bodies. The JPLs Space Flight Operations Facility and Twenty-Five-Foot Space Simulator are designated National Historic Landmarks, JPL traces its beginnings to 1936 in the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology when the first set of rocket experiments were carried out in the Arroyo Seco. Malinas thesis advisor was engineer/aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán, who arranged for U. S. Army financial support for this GALCIT Rocket Project in 1939. In 1941, Malina, Parsons, Forman, Martin Summerfield, in 1943, von Kármán, Malina, Parsons, and Forman established the Aerojet Corporation to manufacture JATO motors. The project took on the name Jet Propulsion Laboratory in November 1943, during JPLs Army years, the laboratory developed two deployed weapon systems, the MGM-5 Corporal and MGM-29 Sergeant intermediate range ballistic missiles. These missiles were the first US ballistic missiles developed at JPL and it also developed a number of other weapons system prototypes, such as the Loki anti-aircraft missile system, and the forerunner of the Aerobee sounding rocket. At various times, it carried out testing at the White Sands Proving Ground, Edwards Air Force Base. A lunar lander was developed in 1938-39 which influenced design of the Apollo Lunar Module in the 1960s. The team lost that proposal to Project Vanguard, and instead embarked on a project to demonstrate ablative re-entry technology using a Jupiter-C rocket. They carried out three successful flights in 1956 and 1957. Using a spare Juno I, the two organizations then launched the United States first satellite, Explorer 1, on February 1,1958, JPL was transferred to NASA in December 1958, becoming the agencys primary planetary spacecraft center. JPL engineers designed and operated Ranger and Surveyor missions to the Moon that prepared the way for Apollo, JPL also led the way in interplanetary exploration with the Mariner missions to Venus, Mars, and Mercury. In 1998, JPL opened the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA, as of 2013, it has found 95% of asteroids that are a kilometer or more in diameter that cross Earths orbit. JPL was early to employ women mathematicians, in the 1940s and 1950s, using mechanical calculators, women in an all-female computations group performed trajectory calculations. In 1961, JPL hired Dana Ulery as their first woman engineer to work alongside male engineers as part of the Ranger and Mariner mission tracking teams, when founded, JPLs site was a rocky flood-plain just outside the city limits of Pasadena. Almost all of the 177 acres of the U. S, the city of La Cañada Flintridge, California was incorporated in 1976, well after JPL attained international recognition with a Pasadena address
3.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
4.
Satellite bus
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A satellite bus or spacecraft bus is the general model on which multiple-production satellite spacecraft are often based. The bus is the infrastructure of a spacecraft, usually providing locations for the payload, a bus-derived satellite would be used as opposed to a one-off, or specially produced satellite, such as Prospero X-3. Bus-derived satellites are usually customized to customer requirements, for example with specialized sensors or transponders, comparison of satellite buses Service module Satellite Glossary JWST Observatory, The Spacecraft Bus Spitzers Spacecraft Bus Gunters Space Page, Spacecraft buses
5.
Mariner program
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The program included a number of firsts, including the first planetary flyby, the first planetary orbiter, and the first gravity assist maneuver. Of the ten vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful, other Mariner-based spacecraft, launched since Voyager, included the Magellan probe to Venus, and the Galileo probe to Jupiter. A second-generation Mariner spacecraft, called the Mariner Mark II series, eventually evolved into the Cassini–Huygens probe, the total cost of the Mariner program was approximately $554 million. Mariner 2 was based on the Ranger Lunar probe, all of the Mariners launched after Mariner 2 had four solar panels for power, except for Mariner 10, which had two. Additionally, all except Mariner 1, Mariner 2 and Mariner 5 had TV cameras, the first five Mariners were launched on Atlas-Agena rockets, while the last five used the Atlas-Centaur. All Mariner-based probes after Mariner 10 used the Titan IIIE, Titan IV unmanned rockets or the Space Shuttle with a solid-fueled Inertial Upper Stage and multiple planetary flybys. Mariners, Mariner 1 Mariner 2 Mariner 3 Mariner 4 Mariner 5 Mariner 6 Mariner 7 Mariner 8 Mariner 9 Mariner 10 Mariner 1, a secondary objective was to make interplanetary magnetic field and/or particle measurements on the way to, and in the vicinity of, Venus. Mariner 1 was launched on July 22,1962, but was destroyed approximately 5 minutes after liftoff by the Air Force Range Safety Officer when its malfunctioning Atlas-Agena rocket went off course. Mariner 2 was launched on August 27,1962, sending it on a 3½-month flight to Venus, the mission was a success, and Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to have flown by another planet. Mariner 2 – Defunct after successful mission, occupies a heliocentric orbit, sisterships Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were Mars flyby missions. Mariner 3 was lost when the vehicles nose fairing failed to jettison. Mariner 4, launched on November 28,1964, was the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, Mariner 4 – Communications lost after bombardment by micrometeoroids. The Mariner 5 spacecraft was launched to Venus on June 14,1967, Mariners 6 and 7 were identical teammates in a two-spacecraft mission to Mars. Mariner 6 was launched on February 24,1969, followed by Mariner 7 on March 21,1969 and they flew over the equator and southern hemisphere of the planet Mars. Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 were identical sister craft designed to map the Martian surface simultaneously and its identical sister craft, Mariner 9, was launched in May 1971 and became the first artificial satellite of Mars. It entered Martian orbit in November 1971 and began photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere with its infrared, in Areocentric orbit until at least 2022 when it is projected to fall out of orbit and into the Martian atmosphere. It was also the first spacecraft to encounter two planets at close range, and for 33 years the spacecraft to photograph Mercury in closeup. Mission, plasma, charged particles, magnetic fields, radio occultation and celestial mechanics Status, Mariner Jupiter-Saturn was approved in 1972 after the cancellation of the Grand Tour program, which proposed visiting all the outer planets with multiple spacecraft
6.
Robotic spacecraft
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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
7.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
8.
Geology of the Moon
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The geology of the Moon is quite different from that of Earth. The complex geomorphology of the surface has been formed by a combination of processes, especially impact cratering. The Moon is a body, with a crust, mantle. Geological studies of the Moon are based on a combination of Earth-based telescope observations, measurements from orbiting spacecraft, lunar samples, and geophysical data. Six locations were sampled directly during the manned Apollo program landings from 1969 to 1972, in addition, three robotic Soviet Luna spacecraft returned another 326 grams from 1970 to 1976. The Moon is the only body for which we have samples with a known geologic context. A handful of lunar meteorites have been recognized on Earth, though their source craters on the Moon are unknown, a substantial portion of the lunar surface has not been explored, and a number of geological questions remain unanswered. Elements known to be present on the surface include, among others, oxygen, silicon, iron, magnesium, calcium, aluminium, manganese. Among the more abundant are oxygen, iron and silicon, the oxygen content is estimated at 45%. Carbon and nitrogen appear to be present only in quantities from deposition by solar wind. Neutron spectrometry data from Lunar Prospector indicate the presence of hydrogen concentrated at the poles, for a long period of time, the fundamental question regarding the history of the Moon was of its origin. Early hypotheses included fission from Earth, capture, and co-accretion, today, the giant impact hypothesis is widely accepted by the scientific community. The geological history of the Moon has been defined into six major epochs, starting about 4.5 billion years ago, the newly formed Moon was in a molten state and was orbiting much closer to Earth resulting in tidal forces. These tidal forces deformed the molten body into an ellipsoid, with the major axis pointed towards Earth, the first important event in the geologic evolution of the Moon was the crystallization of the near global magma ocean. It is not known with certainty what its depth was, the first minerals to form in this ocean were the iron and magnesium silicates olivine and pyroxene. Because these minerals were denser than the material around them. After crystallization was about 75% complete, less dense anorthositic plagioclase feldspar crystallized and floated, forming an anorthositic crust about 50 km in thickness. The oldest of the Mg-suite rocks have ages of about 3.85 Ga. However
9.
Ranger 7
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Ranger 7 was the first American space probe to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program, launched on July 28,1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras - two wide-angle and four narrow-angle - to accomplish these objectives, Ranger 7 transmitted over 4,300 photographs during the final 17 minutes of its flight. After 68.6 hours of flight, the spacecraft landed between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum and this landing site was later named Mare Cognitum. The velocity at impact was 1.62 miles per second, no other experiments were carried on the spacecraft. He considered Ranger a loser and for a while, anyone at NASA involved in the Ranger program tried to conceal it and it was also being said that sending probes up for the sole purpose of returning images was pointless and accomplished nothing that Apollo could not also achieve. Shortly after Ranger 6s mission concluded, a board was convened to resolve the cause of the TV camera failure. This was determined quickly, the inadvertent activation of the telemetry system during ascent had been caused by an electrical short that crippled the power supply for the cameras. But why it had happened was as yet a mystery, especially as telemetry data sent back from the probe could only provide an amount of information. On February 14,1964, JPL released a report noting that an internal command switch could have activated prematurely or that arcing had occurred in the connector on the payload fairing. However, there was no evidence of the latter happening or any way that it could occur. If the cameras had to be redesigned from scratch, the next Ranger mission could be delayed almost a full year. Although there was suspicion that this had been done by a disgruntled employee, since no obvious reason for the malfunction could be found in the cameras themselves, investigation next shifted to the electrical umbilical on the payload fairing. This umbilical connector would normally be attached on the ground to permit testing of the Rangers subsystems, one of the pins on the connector was hot and could easily be bridged, transferring a voltage to the adjacent pins and activating the TV camera system during launch. As for the cause of it, one possibility was electrostatic discharge, alexander Bratenahl, a physicist at JPLs Space Sciences Division, suggested that the electrical short was caused by venting propellant during Atlas booster section jettison. The idea of a discharge was also unlikely given the thinning air. Bratenahl persisted and studied film of Atlas launches with the frames enlarged. Another phone call to Convair revealed that 67 pounds of RP-1 were also dumped during staging, the inadvertent activation of the telemetry system during launch had occurred almost simultaneous with booster jettison at T+140 seconds
