Space Exploration

By s-karlewis
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    Pioneer Program

    Over the course of these 20-some years, many spacecrafts were launched in order to go to and learn about Mars, Venus, and the Sun. All of these missions were unmanned, and they were also all sucessful. The goal of the missions was to learn more about space and planetary exploration.

  • Sputnik Program

    This spacecraft was launched around the Cold War and at the height of the Space Race with Russia and the United States to get spacecrafts into space. Sputnik was launched by the RUssians. This was one of the main reasons that the U.S. created NASA, because they felt the need to compeat againt the Russians. Sputnik also learned much information about the Earth's atmosphere.
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    Venera Probes

    The first date here is the laucnh of the first Venera probe. The first three were failed missions. Over the course of about 20 years, there were 16 total Venera missions to explore Venus. Much important information was discovered, such as the fact that Venus can have lightning storms, took detailed pictures, and found that the sunlight on Venus is similar to that of Earth on a cloudy day, The last date here is the launch date of the final Venera mission, Venera 16.

  • Mercury Program

    This was one o NASA's very first spacecraft missions. The Mercury program carried the first man ever to orbit Earth and the first man in space. With this launch, NASA learned how to safely launch a living person into space.

  • Gemini Program

    The launch of this spacecraft was another one of the very first NASA launches into space, hapening only 20 days after the launch of the Mercury program. With this launch, NASA learned much information about how to allow astronauts to better survive in space more comfortably and for a longer amount of time.
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    The Mariner Program

    The first date here is the date of the launch of Mariner 5, which gathered much information about the atmosphere of Venus. The second date is the date of launch of Marnier 9, which took the first pictures of Martian moons. Through out the years, there were many missions, and the dates ranged in a time period of 1962-1974.
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    Mars Viking Probes--Viking 1

    This probe was the firrst one of its kind to be sent to Mars. Later, a repleca, the Viking 2, would be created and also sent to Mars. Its job was to take incredibly high-definition pictures of Mars. It also made many important discoveries such as the fact that there were channels on the surface of Mars, which means that there could have been water, which means that Mars could sustain life. This theory was later disproved on another exploration of Mars.
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    Mars Viking Probes--Viking 2

    The Viking 2 was very similar to the Viking 1. Both were part of the Mars Viking Probe mission to Mars. The discoveries listed in the Vkiking 1 timespan are also true of Viking 2.

  • Voyager 2

    Voyager 2 was sent into space by NASA. The overall goal was to further investigate space, take pictures of the universe, new stars and planets, new galaxies, and more. The Voyager 2 was created similarly and for the same purpose as Voayger 1 and they are both still in space.

  • Space Shuttle

    This shuttle was launched by NASA, but the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan also had a part in this mission. This was America's first ever spaceshuttle that could be reused at adifferent date. It's job was to launch and recover space satellites.
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    Magellan Spacecraft

    The mission was to orbit Venus, map its surface, and find out more about the geography of the planet.

  • Gallileo Spacecraft

    The Galileo spacecraft was launchd with the mission of observing Jupiter. It reached its destination of Jupiter on December 7, 1995 and became the first spacecraft to orbit it. During its time there, Gallileo made many important discoveries about Jupiter, some of them being that Jupiter has 16 orbiting moons, asteriod =s have moons orbiting them, and Galileo became he first spacecraft to discover an asteriod.

  • The Hubble Space Telescope

    One of the main reasons why the Hubble Telescope was launched into space was to observe Pluto in detiail. While in space, Hubble also discovered dark energy and discoveered a fifth moon around Pluto. Hubble revolves around the Earth once every 97 minutes. It's servicing missions were in 1993, 1999, and 2009. The Hubble Space Telescope is expected to work until some time in 2013.
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    N.E.A.R. Mission

    The Near Earth Asteriod Rendezvous (also known as N.E.A.R) Misson was launched to study objects (specifically asteriods) that were close to the Earth in order to get a better understanding about Eath and space around it. It answered questions about the nature and origin of objects close to Earth. The N.E.A.R. Mission became the first spacecraft to orbit an asteriod.
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    Mars Rovers

    The first date here is the date of the first American rover landing. This rover was called the Sojourner. Previous to this, two rovers had been launched by the Russians, but they were both failures. The second date here is the laun ch date of the last AMerican rover launched, the Curiosity, which is still in space. The goal of the rovers was to take detailed pictures, discover more about Mars, and look for any evidence of water and/or life forms.

  • Voyager 1

    Voyager 1 was laucnhed by NASA. It was the first manmade object to travel to space. The goal was to further investigate space, take pictures of the universe, new stars, new planets, new galaxies, and more. The Voyager 1 is still in space.
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    The Cassini Mission

    On October 15, 1997, NASA launched a probe to orbit Saturn and explore Saturn and its moons. It landed on Titan (on Saturn) on January 14, 2005. While it was there, the probes orbited Saturn 75 times and discoverede much about Saturn's moons.
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    Space Stations

    The first date given here is the launch date of the first expedition of the International Space Station (ISS). The Current expedition 35 was launched on the second date. Expedition 35 is still currently in space. These spacecrafts were designed to hold a crew and stay in space for a very long time under low Earth orbit. Over the course of the past 9 years, 400 experiments have been conducted using these spacecrafts. They mainly study the impact of microgravity and other space effects.
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    Gensis Spacecraft

    This mission was an unmanned mission into space near the Sun. The mission was to collect Sun particles, or more specifically to study solar wind. They used a honeycomb-shaped device to capture and observe Sun particles.