Astronomy Picture of the Day |
APOD: 2009 March 9 - Kepler's Streak
Explanation:
Streaking
skyward,
a Delta II rocket carries NASA's Kepler spacecraft aloft
into the clear night of March 6.
The dramatic scene was recorded in a time exposure from the crowded pier
in Jetty Park at the northern end of Cocoa Beach, Florida, about 3 miles
from the Cape Canaveral launch site.
Kepler's
mission is to search for Earth-like planets
orbiting in the
habitable zone
of other stars.
A planet orbiting within a star's habitable
zone would have a surface temperature
capable of supporting liquid water, an essential ingredient for life as
we know it.
To find Earth-like planets, Kepler's telescope and large, sensitive
camera will examine
a rich star field near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Located in the constellation Cygnus, Kepler's
field of view
will allow it to monitor
the brightness of many stars in the solar neighborhood and detect a
slight dimming as a potential
Earth-like
planet crosses in front of the star.
APOD: 2008 December 24 - Earthrise
Explanation:
Forty years ago, in December of 1968, the
Apollo 8 crew flew from the
Earth to the
Moon and back again.
Frank Borman,
James Lovell, and
William Anders were launched atop a
Saturn
V rocket on December 21,
circled the Moon ten times in their command module,
and returned to Earth on December 27.
The Apollo 8 mission's impressive
list of firsts includes: the first humans to journey to the
Earth's Moon, the first to fly using the
Saturn V rocket,
and the first to photograph
the Earth from deep space.
As the Apollo 8 command module rounded the farside of the Moon,
the crew could look toward the
lunar horizon and see the Earth appear
to rise, due to their spacecraft's orbital motion.
Their
famous picture of a distant blue Earth
above the Moon's limb
was a marvelous gift to the world.
APOD: 2008 October 1 - The First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
Explanation:
A new chapter in space flight began on 1950 July with the
launch of the first rocket from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida: the Bumper V-2.
Shown above, the
Bumper V-2 was an ambitious two-stage rocket program that topped a
V-2 missile base with a
WAC Corporal rocket.
The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of almost 400 kilometers,
higher than even modern Space Shuttles fly today.
Launched
under the direction of the
General Electric Company,
the Bumper V-2 was used primarily for
testing rocket systems and for research on the
upper atmosphere.
Bumper V-2 rockets carried small payloads that
allowed them to measure attributes including air temperature and
cosmic ray impacts.
Seven years later, the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik I and Sputnik II, the first
satellites into Earth orbit.
In response in 1958, 50 years ago today, the
US created NASA.
APOD: 2008 June 13 - At Last GLAST
Explanation:
Rising through a billowing cloud of smoke,
this
Delta II rocket
left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch pad 17-B
Wednesday at 12:05 pm EDT.
Snug
in the payload section was GLAST, the
Gamma-ray
Large Area Space Telescope, now in orbit around planet Earth.
GLAST's
detector technology was developed for use in terrestrial
particle accelerators.
But from orbit,
GLAST can study
gamma-rays from
extreme environments in our own Milky Way galaxy, as well as
supermassive black holes at the centers of distant
active galaxies,
and the sources of powerful
gamma-ray bursts.
Those cosmic accelerators achieve energies not attainable in earthbound
laboratories.
GLAST also has the sensitivity to search
for signatures of new physics
in the relatively
unexplored high-energy gamma-ray regime.
APOD: 2008 March 16 - Endeavour to Orbit
Explanation:
Birds
don't fly as high.
Airplanes don't go as fast.
The Statue of Liberty
weighs less.
No species
other than human can even comprehend what is going on,
nor could any human just a millennium ago.
The launch of a
rocket bound for space is an event that
inspires awe and challenges description.
The
exhaust column
pictured is from the
Space Shuttle Endeavour after
last week's night launch to visit the
International Space Station.
Endeavour's rocket engines create the dramatic glow from above
the clouds.
From a standing start, the two million kilogram
rocket ship left to circle the
Earth where the
outside air is too thin to breathe and where there is
little
noticeable onboard gravity.
Rockets bound for space are now
launched from somewhere on Earth
about once a week.
APOD: 2008 March 14 - Endeavour into the Night
Explanation:
Blasting into a dark night sky, the Space Shuttle Endeavour began
its latest journey to orbit in the early morning hours of March 11.
In this stunning picture following the launch,
the glare
from Endeavour's three
main rocket engines and flanking solid fuel
booster rockets illuminates the
orbiter's tail section and
the large, orange external
fuel tank.
Embarking on mission
STS-123, Endeavour left Kennedy Space Center's
pad 39A, ferrying a crew of seven
astronauts to the International Space Station
(ISS).
The cargo included the first section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency's Kibo laboratory and the Canadian Space Agency's two-armed
robotic system.
Astronauts will conduct a series of
space walks to install the new equipment during the
16-day mission, the longest shuttle mission to the ISS.
APOD: 2007 November 16 - Rocket Fuel
Explanation:
This gorgeous
image of Orion shows off the constellation's
young stars and cosmic clouds of hydrogen gas and dust.
Made with a film camera tracking the stars on November 11,
the exposure lasted some 40 minutes.
It includes the Great Orion Nebula
(near center),
a string of well-known nebulae leading upwards
to Orion's three belt stars,
and the large semi-circular arc known as
Barnard's Loop that seems
to end at the bottom right,
next to bluish supergiant star Rigel.
Serendipitously, the picture also recorded a bright, comet-shaped cloud
not known to share the sky with
Orion's famous stars and nebulae.
Also spotted
by other skywatchers, the mystery cloud was quickly
recognized as a fuel dump from a booster
rocket used
to place a satellite in
geosynchronous orbit.
Reflecting sunlight, the fuel dump plume begins on the west (right)
side of the star field
and expands as it slowly drifts eastward and fades
during the time exposure, creating the
wedge-shaped streak.
APOD: 2007 September 29 - Dawn Launch Mosaic
Explanation:
Shortly
after sunrise on Thursday at
Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station, the
Dawn
spacecraft began its journey to the asteroid belt,
arcing eastward into a blue and cloudy sky.
Dawn's voyage began on a conventional,
chemically
fueled Delta II
rocket, but will continue with an
innovative
ion propulsion system.
The spacecraft's extremely
efficient
ion engines will use electricity
derived from solar power to ionize xenon atoms and generate
a gentle but continuous thrust.
After a four year interplanetary cruise, Dawn will orbit
two small worlds, first Vesta and then Ceres.
Vesta is one of the largest main belt asteroids, while nomenclature
introduced by the International Astronomical Union in 2006 classifies
nearly spherical Ceres as a dwarf planet.
APOD: 2007 July 22 - The Flight Of Helios
Explanation:
An example of solar-powered flight, NASA's Helios
aircraft flew almost
one hundred years after the Wright brothers'
historic flight on December 17, 1903.
Pictured here at 10,000 feet in
in skies northwest of Kauai, Hawaii in August 2001,
the remotely piloted Helios is traveling at about 25 miles per hour.
Essentially an ultralight flying wing
with 14 electric
motors, the aircraft was built by
AeroVironment Inc.
Covered with solar cells, Helios' impressive 247 foot wide wing
exceeded the wing span and even overall length of a
Boeing 747
jet airliner.
Climbing during daylight hours,
the prototype aircraft
ultimately
reached an altitude just short of 100,000 feet,
breaking records for non-rocket
powered flight.
Helios was intended as a technology demonstrator, but
in the extremely thin air 100,000 feet above Earth's surface, the flight
of Helios also
approached
conditions for
winged
flight in the
atmosphere
of Mars.
APOD: 2007 June 3 - Shuttle Plume Shadow Points to Moon
Explanation:
Why would the shadow of a
space shuttle
launch plume point toward the Moon?
In early 2001 during a launch of
Atlantis,
the Sun,
Earth,
Moon,
and rocket were all properly aligned for
this
photogenic coincidence.
First, for the
space shuttle's plume to cast a long shadow,
the time of day must be either near
sunrise or
sunset.
Next, just at sunset, the
shadow
is the longest and extends all the way to the
horizon.
Finally, during a
Full Moon, the
Sun and
Moon are on
opposite sides of the sky.
Just after
sunset, for example, the Sun is slightly below the
horizon, and,
in the other direction, the Moon is slightly above the horizon.
Therefore, as
Atlantis blasted off, just after
sunset,
its shadow projected away from the Sun
toward the opposite horizon, where the
Full Moon just happened to be.
APOD: 2007 February 26 - A Rocket Debris Cloud Drifts
Explanation:
What's that cloud drifting in space?
It's not an astronomical nebula -- those appear to stay put. Atmospheric clouds don't look like this.
The answer to last week's
sky mystery turned out to be
orbiting and expanding debris from the
upper stage of a
failed Russian rocket
that exploded unexpectedly.
The cloud became visible to unaided southern hemisphere observers,
and its cause was initially unknown.
The above time lapse movie shows the cloud drifting as seen from
Australia.
Streaks in and near the cloud are likely large pieces of debris.
The debris cloud is more than an
astronomical curiosity -- particles from this
cloud and others could become projectiles
damaging existing satellites.
As the cloud disperses, many particles will fall to Earth, but many more may help make low Earth orbit an
increasingly
hostile environment.
APOD: 2007 February 22 - Mystery Over Australia
Explanation:
Place your cursor on this stunning view through dark skies
over western Australia to highlight wonders of the southern
Milky Way -- including the famous
Southern Cross,
the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and
bright reddish emission regions surrounding massive star
Eta Carinae.
Recorded Tuesday at about 2 am, the thirty minute long
color film exposure
also captured a bright but mysterious object that
moved slowly across the sky for over an hour.
Widely seen,
the object began as a small
point and expanded as it tracked toward the North (left),
resulting in a
comet-like appearance in this picture.
What was it?
Reports are
now identifying the mystery glow with a plume from
the
explosion of a malfunctioned Russian rocket stage
partially filled with fuel.
The rocket stage was marooned in
Earth orbit
after a failed communication
satellite
launch almost a year ago on February 28, 2006.
A substantial amount of
debris from the breakup can be tracked.
APOD: 2006 December 21 - Minotaur Dawn
Explanation:
Last Saturday,
some colorful dawn skies along the US east coast
featured the Moon and a
Minotaur rocket
climbing into low Earth orbit.
The 7AM
launch of the four stage Air Force
Minotaur I rocket
took place at
NASA's Wallops
Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore.
Looking east, the rocket is visible beyond the top of the
twisting exhaust plume
in this wide angle view, with the waning crescent Moon
at the upper right.
The snapshot was taken from Alexandria, Virginia, some
100 miles northwest of Wallops Island.
Orbital
launches
from Wallops have so far been relatively rare,
the last two taking place in 1995 and 1985.
As a result, many early morning risers reported the unusual
spectacle.
The rocket's payload was the Air Force Research Laboratory's
TacSat-2
satellite and NASA's
GeneSat-1
microsatellite.
APOD: 2006 September 13 - Atlantis to Orbit
Explanation:
Birds don't fly this high.
Airplanes don't go this fast.
The Statue of Liberty
weighs less.
No species
other than human can even comprehend what is going on,
nor could any human just a millennium ago.
The launch of a
rocket bound for space is an event that
inspires awe
and challenges description.
Pictured above, the
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the
International Space Station
during the morning of 2006 September 9.
From a standing start, the two million kilogram
rocket ship left to circle the
Earth where the
outside air is too thin to breathe and where there is
little
noticeable onboard gravity.
Rockets bound for space are now
launched from somewhere on Earth
about once a week.
APOD: 2006 July 13 - A Space Shuttle Climbs to Orbit
Explanation:
You are going into space.
New small cameras allow anyone with a
web browser
to virtually ride along with the
space shuttle,
at times from numerous angles, as it launches into
Earth orbit.
Small cameras mounted on the tall thin
solid rocket boosters have captured last week's launch of the
Space Shuttle Discovery
from a unique perspective and in fascinating detail.
The above movie picks up just before the
space shuttle separated from the thin boosters.
The tiles on the
bottom of the shuttle are clearly visible.
As the movie progresses, the shuttle Discovery and its brown
external fuel tank break away from the boosters and continue onward and upward.
The new cameras not only make
cool movies
-- they help NASA monitor details of its
shuttle launches better,
with the promise of making future rocket launches safer and more efficient.
APOD: 2006 July 8 - Discovery in Motion
Explanation:
On July 4th, the space shuttle orbiter Discovery rocketed into space on
mission STS-121.
Now docked with the International Space Station, Discovery
orbits
planet Earth at about 27 thousand kilometers per hour.
But in this dramatic sunset view
taken in May, Discovery is approaching the service structures
at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B at the blinding speed of
(less than) 2 kilometers per hour.
Of course, the
orbiter,
booster rockets, and
external fuel tank
ride on one of NASA's workhorse crawler transporters.
Built for the Apollo program to carry the giant
Saturn V rocket, the
crawler transporters have seen four decades
of service.
APOD: 2006 June 4 - The First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
Explanation:
A new chapter in space flight began on 1950 July with the
launch of the first rocket from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida: the Bumper 2.
Shown above, the
Bumper 2 was an ambitious two-stage rocket program that topped a
V-2 missile base with a
WAC Corporal rocket.
The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of almost 400 kilometers,
higher than even modern Space Shuttles fly today.
Launched
under the direction of the
General Electric Company,
the Bumper 2 was used primarily for
testing rocket systems and for research on the
upper atmosphere.
Bumper 2 rockets carried small payloads that
allowed them to measure attributes including air temperature and
cosmic ray impacts.
Seven years later, the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik I and Sputnik II, the first
satellites into Earth orbit.
In response, in 1958, the
US created NASA.
APOD: 2006 May 29 - The NASA Television Channel
Explanation:
Do you ever feel like watching the NASA channel?
If so, in addition to standard cable access and the
standard NASA TV web pages, it might now be possible to watch
NASA TV simply by accessing
today's APOD.
Watch cool
rocket launches,
real-time return of scientific results and images from deep space probes,
press conferences, and interviews with scientists, educators, and astronauts.
To see the channel optimally, one should have a broadband web connection and Windows Media Player properly installed.
Options for watching
NASA TV on
other platforms are also available.
On most computers, a sound adjustment
slider is available on the lower right.
Double clicking
on the image will expand the image to fill your computer screen.
A standard schedule is available for NASA's Public TV channel, as well as a
live events listing and an
educational programming guide.
APOD thanks
Lior Shamir
for help in coding the hypertext that runs the above television-to-web link.
APOD: 2006 April 29 - Skylab Over Earth
Explanation:
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a
Saturn V rocket in May 1973.
Skylab,
pictured above, was visited three times by
NASA astronauts who sometimes stayed as long as two and a half months.
Many scientific tests were performed on
Skylab, including astronomical observations in
ultraviolet and
X-ray light.
Some of these observations yielded valuable information about
Comet Kohoutek,
our Sun and about the
mysterious X-ray background -
radiation that comes from all over the sky.
Skylab
fell back to earth on 11 July 1979.
APOD: 2006 January 24 - New Horizons Launches to Pluto
Explanation:
Destination: Pluto.
The New Horizons spacecraft roared off its launch pad at
Cape Canaveral in
Florida,
USA last week toward adventures in the distant
Solar System.
The craft is one of the
fastest spaceships ever
launched by humans, having passed
the Moon only nine hours after launch and is on track to
buzz Jupiter in early 2007.
Even traveling over 75,000 kilometers per hour, the
New Horizons craft will not arrive at Pluto until 2015.
Pluto
is the only remaining planet that has never been visited by a
spacecraft or photographed up close.
After Pluto,
the robot spaceship will visit one or more
Kuiper Belt Objects orbiting the Sun even further out than Pluto.
Pictured,
the New Horizons craft launches into
space atop a powerful
Atlas V rocket.
APOD: 2006 January 7 - Apollo 17 s Moonship
Explanation:
Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module
Challenger
was designed for flight in the vacuum of space.
This picture from command module
America,
shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.
Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of
the
moonship with the bell of the
ascent rocket engine underneath.
The hatch allowing
access
to the lunar surface is seen at the front,
with a round radar antenna at the top.
Mission commander Gene Cernan is just visible through
the dark, triangular window.
This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on the Moon
and
returning the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module
in December of 1972.
So where is Challenger now?
Its descent stage
remains at the
Apollo 17 landing site, Taurus-Littrow.
The ascent stage was intentionally crashed nearby
after being jettisoned from the command module prior to
the
astronauts' return to planet Earth.
Apollo 17's mission
was the sixth and last time astronauts
have landed on the Moon.
APOD: 2005 December 24 - Earthrise
Explanation:
In December of 1968, the
Apollo 8 crew flew from the
Earth to the
Moon and back again.
Frank Borman,
James Lovell, and
William Anders were launched atop a
Saturn
V rocket on December 21,
circled the Moon ten times in their command module,
and returned to Earth on December 27.
The Apollo 8 mission's impressive
list of firsts includes: the first humans to journey to the
Earth's Moon, the first manned flight using the
Saturn V,
and the first to photograph
the Earth from deep space.
As the Apollo 8 command module rounded the farside of the Moon,
the crew could look toward the
lunar horizon and see the Earth appear
to rise, due to their spacecraft's orbital motion.
The famous
picture that resulted, of a distant
blue Earth above the
Moon's limb, was a marvelous gift to the world.
APOD: 2005 December 10 - The Last Moon Shot
Explanation:
In 1865 Jules
Verne predicted the invention of a space capsule that
could carry people.
His science fiction story
"From
the Earth to the Moon" outlined his vision of
a cannon in Florida so powerful that it could shoot a
Projectile-Vehicle carrying three adventurers
to the Moon.
Over 100 years later
NASA,
guided by
Wernher Von Braun's vision, produced the
Saturn V rocket.
From a
spaceport in Florida, this rocket turned Verne's fiction
into fact,
launching 9 Apollo Lunar missions and allowing 12 astronauts
to
walk on the Moon.
As spotlights play on the rocket and launch pad at dusk, the last moon shot,
Apollo 17, is
pictured here
awaiting its December 1972 night launch.
APOD: 2005 November 12 - Surveyor Hops
Explanation:
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from
images returned by the
US
Surveyor 6 lander.
Surveyor 6 was not the first spacecraft to
accomplish a soft landing
on the Moon ... but it was
the first to land and then lift off again!
After the spacecraft touched down near the center of the
Moon's nearside
in November of 1967, NASA controllers commanded it to hop.
Briefly firing its rocket engine
and lifting itself some 4 meters above the surface, the
Surveyor moved about 2.5 meters
to one side before setting down again.
The hopping success of Surveyor 6
essentially marked the completion of the
Surveyor series main mission -
to determine if the lunar terrain was safe for
the planned
Apollo
landings.
APOD: 2005 October 27 - The Last Titan
Explanation:
On
October 19th, a rocket blasted off from
Vandenberg Air Force Base - the
last Titan rocket.
Carrying a payload for the US
National Reconnaissance Office, the successful
Titan IV B launch brings to a close the Titan program
whose first launch was in 1959.
Originally designed as an intercontinental ballistic missile,
the
Titan rocket ultimately evolved into a heavy lift workhorse,
launching defense, commercial, and scientific payloads to
Earth orbit and beyond.
In fact, many historic space explorations
began with Titan launches, including manned
Gemini missions, the
Viking
missions to Mars, the
Voyager tours of the
outer solar system, and the
Cassini
spacecraft now orbiting Saturn.
Cassini's probe Huygens accomplished
the most distant landing
on another world, while
Voyager 1 is now humanity's most
distant
spacecraft.
APOD: 2005 October 19 - On the Possibility of Ascending to Mars
Explanation:
On another October 19, in 1899, a 17 year-old
Robert Goddard
climbed a cherry tree on a beautiful autumn afternoon
in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Inspired by H.G. Wells'
War of the Worlds and
gazing out across
a meadow, young Goddard imagined it
would be wonderful to make a device that had the possibility
of ascending to Mars.
Forever more he felt his life had a purpose and
in the following years his diary entries record October 19th
as "Anniversary Day", the anniversary of his ascent into the
cherry tree.
By 1926 he had
designed, built, and flown the world's first
liquid fuel rocket.
Mars is just visible through the trees
at the lower right in this dramatic
sky view that also features the Moon
and Venus -- all visited by
liquid fuel rockets constructed
on principles developed by Goddard.
APOD: 2005 October 9 - Rollout of Soyuz TMA 2 Aboard an R7 Rocket
Explanation:
It takes a big rocket to go into space.
In 2003 April, this
huge Russian rocket
was launched toward Earth-orbiting
International Space Station (ISS),
carrying two astronauts who will make up the new Expedition 7 crew.
Seen here during rollout at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the rocket's white top is actually the
Soyuz TMA-2, the most recent version of the
longest serving type of human spacecraft.
The base is a
Russian
R7 rocket, originally developed as a prototype
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in 1957.
The
rocket spans the width of a football field and
has a fueled mass of about half a million kilograms.
Russian rockets like this remain a primary transportation system to the
International Space Station (ISS).
Last week, a similar rocket
successfully launched a
spaceflight participant
and two
Expedition 12 astronauts to the space station.
APOD: 2005 September 28 - A Rocket Launch at Sunset
Explanation:
What kind of cloud is that?
Last week, a
sunset rocket launch
lit up the sky and was photographed by
sky enthusiasts as far as hundreds of miles away.
The lingering result was a
photogenic rocket plume.
Not everyone who saw the resulting plume knew its cause to be a
Minotaur rocket
launched from
Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California,
USA.
The cloud was visible after sunset on 22 September.
Fuel particles and water droplets expelled from the rocket swirled in the
winds of the upper atmosphere, creating an expanding
helix.
The noctilucent plume was so high
that it still reflected sunlight, where lower clouds in the foreground appeared dark.
The above image
also captured part of the plume reflecting sunlight as a
rainbow or a colorful
iridescent cloud.
Below the launch plume is the planet
Venus.
APOD: 2005 July 12 - Launch of the Red Bird
Explanation:
Glare and exhaust from the three stage, solid fuel
M-V-6 rocket punctuates a perfect launch of the
Astro-E2 observatory.
The dramatic picture was taken at the
Uchinoura
Space Center
on July 10 at 12:30 JST.
For dedicated astronomers,
a celebration is definitely
in order as this launch is a reflight of the Astro-E payload,
originally destroyed in a launch failure
in February 2000.
Now being checked out in Earth orbit, the
innovative instrumentation on board the
satellite will explore
the Universe in
energetic x-rays.
Following a tradition of renaming satellites after their
successful launch,
Astro-E2 has been
newly dubbed Suzaku.
Suzaku, a phoenix-like deity in mythology
associated
with the southern part of the sky, is a 'Red Bird'.
APOD: 2005 February 8 - A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii
Explanation:
What in heavens-above was that?
Not everything seen on the night sky is understood.
The Night Sky Live
(NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously
updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky.
On the night of 2004 December 17, the
fisheye
CONCAM perched on top of an
active volcano in
Haleakala,
Hawaii,
saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious.
The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as unconfirmed,
but the Mauna Kea CONCAM
on the next Hawaiian island recorded the
same thing.
The NSL team might then have disregarded the streak as a satellite,
but no record of it was found in the
heavens-above.com
site that usually documents bright satellite events.
If you think you have a
reasonable explanation for the streak,
please contribute to the on-line discussion.
Current candidates include a known satellite that was somehow missed by
heavens-above,
a recently launched rocket, and a
passing space rock.
Volunteers are solicited by the NSL project to help
monitor the operability of each NSL CONCAM,
including looking for
interesting anomalies such as this.
Disclosure: Robert Nemiroff collaborates on both the
NSL and
APOD projects.
APOD: 2005 January 26 - First Launch of the Delta IV Heavy
Explanation:
The new Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle is the
largest rocket ever to be launched by the
US Air Force.
The Delta IV Heavy is capable of launching over 23,000 kilograms into
low Earth orbit.
The first launch of the Delta IV Heavy occurred last month and was largely successful with the
exception that the boosters shut off several seconds prematurely.
Boeing's Delta IV Heavy is the largest of the
Delta IV series,
packing the punch of three rocket boosters instead of one.
Pictured above, the Delta IV Heavy is seen lifting off by a
RocketCam perched on its side.
The time-lapse sequence shows the launch, one of the rocket boosters being jettisoned, and a test satellite further lifting away.
Lockheed Martin is developing its own
heavy lifting version of its
Altas rocket
series in conjunction with the US Air Force's
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) progam.
APOD: 2004 December 24 - Swift RocketCam
Explanation:
A forward-facing
RocketCam (TM) mounted inside the
payload fairing of a
Delta II rocket captured
these dramatic video frames on November 20th -- as the
Swift satellite
observatory journeyed to an orbit
600 kilometers above planet Earth.
Some frames were interpolated to correct for
transmission problems.
The sequence shows the fairing separation,
the second stage rotating past the Earth's limb,
and finally the 1500 kilogram satellite itself separating
from the second stage.
Observing at optical, ultraviolet, x-ray and
gamma-ray energies,
Swift is designed to locate the sources
of energetic
gamma-ray bursts and
watch as their
afterglows fade
in the distant Universe.
Still in its checkout phase, the observatory is already
detecting the high energy flashes from
these awe-inspiring cosmic blasts.
APOD: 2004 December 12 - Atlantis to Orbit
Explanation:
Birds
don't fly this high.
Airplanes don't go this fast.
The Statue of Liberty
weighs less.
No species
other than human can even comprehend what is going on,
nor could any human just a millennium ago.
The launch of a
rocket bound for space is an event that
inspires awe
and challenges description.
Pictured above, the
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the
International Space Station
during the early morning hours of 2001 July 12.
From a standing start, the two million kilogram
rocket ship left to circle the
Earth where the
outside air is too thin to breathe and where there is
little
noticeable onboard gravity.
Rockets bound for space are now
launched from somewhere on Earth
about once a week.
APOD: 2004 August 14 - Messenger Launch
Explanation:
Streaking
into the early morning sky on August 3rd, a
Delta II rocket launches NASA's
Messenger
spacecraft on an interplanetary voyage to
Mercury.
Scheduled to become the first probe to orbit Mercury, Messenger
will begin by
looping through the inner Solar System in a
series of close flybys of planet Earth and Venus.
The flybys are designed as trajectory changing
gravity
assist encounters to ultimately achieve the goal of orbiting
Mercury in 2011.
Prior to entering orbit, Messenger will also flyby Mercury
in 2008 and 2009 as the first spacecraft to visit
the Solar System's innermost planet since
Mariner 10 in the
mid 1970s.
This dramatic view
of the Messenger launch was recorded from
a pier in Jetty Park at the north end of Cocoa Beach
about 2.5 miles from the
Cape
Canaveral launch site.
So what's that erratic blue streak on the right?
It's the reflection from a camera
blurred in the time exposure.
APOD: 2004 July 22 - Aura Launch
Explanation:
In this alluring time exposure,
star trails arc across
the night sky above Monterey Bay and the lights of Santa Cruz,
California, USA.
But since the exposure began around 3:01am PDT on July 15
it also records the long trail of a
Delta II rocket lofting
NASA's Aura
spacecraft into Earth orbit.
Watching from a vantage point about 200 miles north of the
Vandenberg Air Force Base
launch site, photographer Rick Baldridge reports that the
trail represents the first five minutes of the
rocket's powered
flight with the ignition of additional solid fuel strap-on motors
visible after liftoff, near the beginning of the track.
The rocket trail ends at first stage shutdown.
Seen under the rocket's path,
the two brightest star trails mark the alpha and beta stars
of the high-flying
constellation Grus.
The Aura spacecraft's
goal is a comprehensive study of
planet Earth's nurturing atmosphere.
APOD: 2004 July 3 - Cassini to Venus
Explanation:
Saturn
Orbiter Cassini with
Titan
Probe Huygens attached
rocketed into early morning
skies on October 15, 1997.
The mighty Titan 4B Centaur rocket
is
seen here across the water, arcing away
from Launch Complex 40 at
Cape Canaveral Air Station.
Cassini, a sophisticated
robot
spacecraft was actually headed toward
inner planet Venus,
the first way point in its 7 year, 2.2 billion mile
interplanetary journey to Saturn.
In fact, Cassini swung by Venus during
April 1998 and June 1999, Earth
in August 1999, and Jupiter
in December 2000.
During each of these
"gravity assist" encounters the six ton
spacecraft picked up speed,
reaching Saturn only three days ago.
Cassini is now orbiting the ringed gas giant, with
the Huygens Probe scheduled to separate from the spacecraft
in December.
The probe's descent to the surface of
Saturn's large moon
Titan
will be the most distant
landing ever attempted.
APOD: 2004 June 25 - Planet Earth from SpaceShipOne
Explanation:
On
June 21st, pilot Mike Melvill made a historic flight
in the winged craft
dubbed SpaceShipOne -- the first private
manned mission to space.
The spaceship reached an altitude of just over 62 miles
(100 kilometers) on a
suborbital trajectory,
similar to the early space flights in NASA's
Mercury Program.
So, how was the view?
A video camera on an earlier
test
flight that climbed 40 miles recorded this picture
looking west over the southern California coast and
the Earth's limb.
In the foreground, the nozzle of SpaceShipOne's hybrid
rocket is visible along with
the edge of the wing in a "feathered" configuration
for reentry.
SpaceShipOne was designed and built by
Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites to
compete for the 10 million dollar
X Prize.
APOD: 2004 March 29 - NASA's X 43A Scramjet Sets Air Speed Record
Explanation:
Using oxygen from the air itself, a NASA experimental
jet propelled itself past Mach 7 in the atmosphere above
the Pacific Ocean this weekend.
The small automated
X-43A Hyper-X craft was dropped from a huge converted
B-52 bomber and then accelerated by a standard
Pegasus rocket.
At Mach 7, seven times the
speed of sound, the X-43A separated and the novel
scramjet kicked in.
Atmospheric
oxygen was then scooped up, combined with onboard
hydrogen, and combusted in flight to propel the
X-43A to record air speeds
during maneuvers over the next 10 seconds.
Engines of
ramjet design have been suggested as a
satellite launch method without heavy fuel tanks
and even romanticized for
interstellar space travel.
The previously acknowledged
air-speed record for jet-powered flight was
Mach 3.3 for the decommissioned
SR-71.
Re-entering space rockets can start as high as
Mach 36 before the atmosphere decelerates them.
The X-43A, depicted in the
artist's illustration above, might well propel
itself past Mach 10 in future tests.
APOD: 2003 December 20 - The Flight of Helios
Explanation:
An example of solar-powered flight, NASA's Helios
aircraft flew almost
one hundred years after the Wright brothers'
historic flight on December 17, 1903.
Pictured here at 10,000 feet in
in skies northwest of Kauai, Hawaii in August 2001,
the remotely piloted Helios is traveling at about 25 miles per hour.
Essentially an ultralight flying wing
with 14 electric
motors, the aircraft was built by AeroVironment Inc.
Covered with solar cells, Helios' impressive 247 foot wide wing
exceeded the wing span and even overall length of a
Boeing 747
jet airliner.
Climbing during daylight hours,
the prototype aircraft
ultimately
reached an altitude just short of 100,000 feet,
breaking records for non-rocket
powered flight.
Helios was intended as a technology demonstrator, but
in the extremely thin air 100,000 feet above Earth's surface, the flight
of Helios also
approached
conditions for
winged
flight in the
atmosphere
of Mars.
APOD: 2003 October 18 - The Last Moon Shot
Explanation:
In 1865 Jules
Verne predicted the invention of a space capsule that
could carry people.
In his science fiction story
"From
the Earth to the Moon", he outlined his vision of
a cannon in Florida so powerful that it could shoot a
"Projectile-Vehicle" carrying three adventurers
to the Moon.
Over 100 years later,
NASA,
guided by
Wernher Von Braun's vision, produced the
Saturn V rocket.
From a
spaceport in Florida,
this rocket turned Verne's fiction
into fact,
launching 9 Apollo Lunar missions and allowing 12 astronauts
to
walk on the Moon.
Pictured is
the last moon shot,
Apollo 17, awaiting its
December 1972 night launch.
Spotlights play on the rocket and launch pad
at dusk.
Humans have not
walked on on the lunar surface since.
APOD: 2003 September 22 - Opportunity Rockets Toward Mars
Explanation:
Next stop:
Mars.
Two months ago, the second of
two missions to Mars
was launched from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida,
USA above a
Boeing
Delta II rocket.
The Mars Exploration Rover dubbed Opportunity is expected to arrive
at the red planet this coming January.
Pictured above, an attached
RocketCam (TM) captures Opportunity
separating from lower booster stages and rocketing off toward
Mars.
Upon arriving, parachutes will deploy to slow the spacecraft and surrounding
airbags will inflate.
The balloon-like package will then bounce around the
surface a dozen times or more before coming to a stop.
The airbags will then deflate, the spacecraft will right itself,
and the Opportunity rover will prepare to roll onto Mars.
A first rover named Spirit was
successfully launched
on June 10 and will arrive at Mars a few weeks earlier.
The robots Spirit and Opportunity are expected to cover as much as
40 metres per day, much more than Sojourner,
their 1997 predecessor.
Spirit and Opportunity will search for evidence of
ancient Martian water,
from which implications might be drawn about the possibility of
ancient Martian life.
APOD: 2003 September 5 - SIRTF Streak
Explanation:
Streaking skyward, a
Boeing Delta 2-Heavy rocket carries NASA's
Space InfraRed
Telescope Facility (SIRTF) aloft during
the early morning hours of August 25th.
The dramatic scene was recorded in a time exposure from the pier
in Jetty Park at the northern end of Cocoa Beach, Florida,
about 2.5 miles from the Cape Canaveral launch site.
SIRTF (sounds like "sir tiff") will explore the distant
Universe in infrared light
as the fourth and final
satellite observatory in NASA's
Great Observatories Program.
The three other large astrophysics satellites were designed
for higher energies in the electromagnetic spectrum, with the
Hubble Space Telescope
operating near visible wavelengths, the
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
instruments sensitive to gamma rays, and the
Chandra Observatory
detecting cosmic x-rays.
SIRTF has been launched into an
Earth-trailing
solar orbit to reduce its exposure to infrared radiation from
our fair planet.
Cooled by an on board supply of
liquid helium,
SIRTF's infrared detectors will operate at near absolute zero
temperatures.
Presently, SIRTF's systems are undergoing a 90-day check out.
APOD: 2003 July 28 - Launch of the Spirit Rover Toward Mars
Explanation:
Next stop:
Mars.
Last month the first of
two missions to Mars
was launched from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida,
USA above a
Boeing
Delta II rocket.
Pictured above, solid fuel boosters are seen falling
away as light from residual exhaust is reflected by the
soaring rocket.
The Mars Exploration Rover dubbed Spirit is expected to arrive
at the red planet this coming January.
Upon arriving, parachutes will deploy to slow the spacecraft and surrounding
airbags will inflate.
The balloon-like package will then bounce around the
surface a dozen times or more before coming to a stop.
The airbags will then deflate, the spacecraft will right itself,
and the Spirit rover will prepare to roll onto Mars.
The robotic Spirit is expected to cover as much as 40 meters per day,
much more than Sojourner,
its 1997 predecessor.
Spirit will search for evidence of
ancient Martian water,
from which implications might be drawn about the possibility of
ancient Martian life.
A second rover named Opportunity was
successfully launched
on July 7 and will arrive at Mars a few weeks later.
APOD: 2003 June 27 - SpaceShipOne
Explanation:
Slung below its equally innovative mothership
dubbed White Knight,
SpaceShipOne
rides above planet Earth,
photographed during a recent flight test.
SpaceShipOne was designed and built by cutting-edge aeronautical
engineer Burt
Rutan and his company Scaled Composites to compete for
the X Prize.
The 10 million dollar X prize is open to private companies and requires
the successful launch of a spaceship which carries three people
on short sub-orbital flights
to an altitude of 100 kilometers -- a
scenario similar to the early manned
spaceflights of
NASA's Mercury Program.
Unlike more conventional
rocket flights to space,
SpaceShipOne will first be
carried to an altitude of 50,000 feet
by the twin turbojet White Knight and then released before
igniting its own
hybrid
solid fuel rocket engine.
After the climb to space,
the craft will convert to a stable high drag
configuration for re-entry, ultimately landing like a
conventional glider at light plane speeds.
APOD: 2003 April 28 - Rollout of a Soyuz TMA 2 Rocket
Explanation:
It takes a big rocket to go into space.
Last weekend, this
huge Russian rocket was
launched toward Earth-orbiting
International Space Station (ISS),
carrying two astronauts who will make up the new Expedition 7 crew.
Seen here during rollout at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the rocket's white top is actually a
Soyuz TMA-2, the most recent version of the
longest serving type of human spacecraft.
The base is a
Russian
R7 rocket, originally developed as a prototype
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in 1957.
The
rocket spans the width of a football field and
has a fueled mass of about half a million kilograms.
Russian rockets like this will be
primary transportation system to the
ISS while
NASA
studies the underlying reasons behind the recent
tragic break-up of the
Space Shuttle Columbia.
APOD: 2003 February 15 - Happy Birthday Jules Verne
Explanation:
One hundred seventy-five years ago (on February 8th),
Jules Verne was
born
in Nantes, France.
Inspired
by a lifelong fascination with machines,
Verne
wrote visionary works about
"Extraordinary Voyages" including such terrestrial travels as
Around
the World in 80 Days,
Journey to the Centre of the Earth,
and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
In 1865 he published the story of three adventurers who undertook a journey
From
the Earth to the Moon.
Verne's characters rode a
"projectile-vehicle"
fired from a huge cannon constructed in Florida, USA.
Does that sound vaguely
familiar?
A century later,
the Saturn V rocket and NASA's
Apollo program finally
turned this work of fiction into fact, propelling
adventuresome trios on what
was perhaps Verne's most extraordinary voyage.
This dramatic view
shows the moonbound Apollo 11 space-vehicle riding
top a Saturn V rocket as it blasts skyward.
Launched from a spaceport
in Florida, the
Apollo 11 crew traveled to the moon
and back again in 1969, making
humanity's first landing on the lunar surface.
APOD: 2003 January 31 - Auroral Rocket Launch
Explanation:
In this striking image, a rocket climbs skyward toward an expansive
green auroral display in the
first
launch of 2003 from the University of Alaska's
Poker Flat Research Range.
Recorded on January 27th, the view from Cleary Summit near Fairbanks,
Alaska shows the fiery tracks of both solid fuel
stages of the
Black
Brant IX sounding rocket that lofted
its payload to an altitude of 385 kilometers.
Compared to rockets which launch
payloads to Earth orbit and beyond,
sounding
rockets are small and relatively inexpensive.
They get their generic name from the nautical
term "to sound" which means to take measurements.
Known as
HIBAR
(HIgh Bandwidth Auroral Rocket), this experiment
was designed to measure aurora related
high-frequency plasma waves which may originate thousands of
kilometers above the aurora's visible glow.
APOD: 2003 January 23 - Launch of the Sun Pillar
Explanation:
On January 16, NASA's space shuttle
Columbia roared into blue morning
skies above Kennedy Space Center on
STS-107,
the first shuttle mission of 2003.
But this is not a picture of
that launch!
It was taken on the morning of January 16 though, at sunrise, looking
eastward toward Lake Ontario from just outside of Caledon, Ontario,
Canada.
In the picture a sun pillar, sunlight reflecting
from ice crystals
gently falling through the cold air, seems to shoot above the fiery
Sun still low on the horizon.
By chance, fog
and clouds forming over the relatively warm lake look
like billowing smoke from a rocket's
exhaust plume and complete the
launch illusion.
Amateur photographer Lauri Kangas stopped on his way to work to record
the eye-catching
sun pillar launch.
APOD: 2003 January 5 - Atlantis to Orbit
Explanation:
Birds
don't fly this high.
Airplanes don't go this fast.
The Statue of Liberty
weighs less.
No species
other than human can even comprehend what is going on,
nor could any human just a millennium ago.
The launch of a
rocket bound for space is an event that
inspires awe
and challenges description.
Pictured above, the
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the
International Space Station
during the early morning hours of July 12.
From a standing start, the two million kilogram
rocket ship left to circle the
Earth where the
outside air is too thin to breathe and where there is
little
noticeable onboard gravity.
Rockets bound for space are now
launched from somewhere on Earth
about once a week.
APOD: 2002 November 30 - Surveyor Hops
Explanation:
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from
images returned by the
US
Surveyor 6 lander.
Surveyor 6 was not the
first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing
on the Moon ... but it was
the first to land and then lift off again!
After the spacecraft touched down near the center of
the Moon's nearside
in November of 1967, NASA controllers commanded it to hop.
Briefly firing its rocket engine
and lifting itself some 4 meters above the surface,
the Surveyor moved about 2.5 meters
to one side before setting down again.
The hopping success of Surveyor 6
essentially marked the completion of
the Surveyor series main mission -
to determine if the lunar terrain was safe for
the
planned Apollo landings.
APOD: 2002 September 26 - Rocket Trail at Sunset
Explanation:
Bright light from a setting Sun and pale glow from a rising Moon
both contribute to this stunning picture of a rocket exhaust trail
twisting
and drifting in the evening sky.
Looking west,
the digital telephoto view was recorded from
Table Mountain Observatory
near Wrightwood California,
USA on September 19, four days before the autumnal
equinox.
The rocket, a Minuteman III
solid fuel missile, was far down range when the image was taken.
Launched from
Vandenberg Air Force Base it carried
its test payload thousands of miles out over the Pacific Ocean.
The red/orange color
from the setting Sun dramatically intensifies
near the top of the rocket trail, but below the sunset line,
the very bottom of the trail is faintly illuminated from the
east by a nearly full Moon.
Still in full sunlight, the bright diffuse cloud at the top of the
trail, the result of a rocket stage separation, is tinged with
rainbows likely produced by high altitude ice crystals forming
in the exhaust plume.
Astronomer
James Young
comments that the cloud takes on the
appearance of a white dove flying from right to left
across the sky.
APOD: 2002 September 16 - An Atlas V Rocket Prepares to Launch
Explanation:
The first launch of an Atlas V rocket
occurred last month.
The Atlas V,
built by Lockheed Martin, is the first rocket in the
U. S. Air Force's
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program.
Rockets in this program can carry increasingly
heavy payloads by just adding more boosters.
In fact, the only US expendable rocket capable of
lifting more was the Saturn V
that carried people to the
Moon.
Atlas rockets have a reputation for being extremely reliable -- the current launch was the 61st consecutive successful launch for an
Atlas.
Highlighted in the inset is the small
RocketCam camera that sent back
pictures from the rocket during launch.
APOD: 2002 July 20 - Footprints on Another World
Explanation:
On July 20th, 1969,
humans first set foot on
the Moon.
Taken from a window of their Apollo 11 lunar module, the Eagle,
this picture shows the footprints in the
powdery lunar soil made by
astronauts
Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin.
It has been estimated that
one billion people on
planet Earth watched Armstrong step from
the lander onto the
surface of another world,
making this live transmission
one of the highest rated television shows ever.
In the foreground at right, a rocket nozzle on the side of
the Eagle is seen in silhouette, while beyond an unfurled
United States flag
is the television camera, remounted on
a stand to better view the landing area.
The Apollo
missions to the Moon have been described as the result of the
greatest technological mobilization in
history.
APOD: 2002 January 27 - Earth Rise
Explanation:
During 1968, the
Apollo 8 crew flew from the
Earth to the
Moon and back.
The crew, consisting of
Frank Borman,
James Lovell, and
William Anders, were launched atop a
Saturn V rocket on December 21,
circled the Moon ten times in their command module,
and landed back on Earth on December 27.
The Apollo 8 mission's impressive list of firsts includes:
the first humans to journey to the
Earth's Moon, the first manned flight using the
Saturn V,
and the first to photograph the Earth from deep space.
The famous picture above, showing the Earth rising
above the
Moon's limb as seen from lunar orbit, was a marvelous gift to the world.
APOD: 2002 January 5 - Apollo 17 s Moonship
Explanation:
Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module
Challenger
was designed
for flight in the vacuum of space.
This sharp picture from the command module
America,
shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.
Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of
the
moonship with the bell of the
ascent rocket engine itself underneath.
The hatch allowing
access
to the lunar surface is visible in the front
and a round radar antenna appears at the top.
This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on
the
moon and returning
the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module in December
of 1972 - but
where is Challenger now?
Its descent stage
remains at the
Apollo 17 landing site,
Taurus-Littrow.
The ascent stage was intentionally crashed nearby
after being jettisoned from the command module prior to
the
astronauts' return to planet Earth.
Apollo 17's mission
was the sixth and last time astronauts
have landed on the moon.
APOD: 2001 November 15 - Recycling Columbia
Explanation:
Twenty years ago this week, the
Space Shuttle Columbia became
the first reusable spaceship.
Its second trip to low Earth orbit and back again began
on November 12, 1981, following its
maiden voyage by only seven months.
Seen above Columbia, 56 meters (184 feet) long with a
24 meter (78 foot) wingspan, is launched mated to an
external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters producing
dramatic exhaust plumes.
The solid rocket boosters,
one on each side of the external tank, provide most of the thrust in
the first 2 minutes after launch and are then jettisoned for
later recovery.
Supplying the main shuttle engines during liftoff, the
external fuel tank separates after about 8 minutes.
The largest shuttle element not recycled for a future
flight, the external tank falls back
toward Earth breaking up and descending into a remote ocean area.
Still the oldest operating shuttle, Columbia is
pictured here
in June of 1992 rocketing toward a cloud bank on
its twelfth flight.
Officially designated OV-102, Columbia is
fittingly named after the 18th
century sailing vessel which became the first
American
ship to circumnavigate planet Earth.
APOD: 2001 October 25 - Odyssey at Mars
Explanation:
After an interplanetary
journey lasting 200 days, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft
has
entered orbit around the Red Planet.
This latest success is welcome as in the past, Mars has often seemed a
difficult planet to visit.
Beginning with the first
Soviet attempts in 1960, around 30 missions have
tried while only 10 or so have gone without serious mishap.
Now that
Mars Odyssey
has arrived, its immediate future will involve
aerobraking.
Cautiously dipping into the
martian atmosphere, the spacecraft will
gradually adjust its present wide and elliptical 20-hour
orbit to a circular 2-hour orbit only 400 kilometers above the
planet's surface.
Then, its instruments and
cameras will focus on exploring
the climate and geologic history
of Mars, including the
search for water
and evidence of life-sustaining
environments.
In the artist's conception above, the spacecraft with wing-like solar panels
is imagined firing its rocket engine for
Mars orbit insertion over terrain seen
in natural and false-color.
APOD: 2001 October 22 - The First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
Explanation:
A new chapter in space flight began on 1950 July with the
launch of the first rocket from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida: the Bumper 2.
Shown above, the
Bumper 2 was an ambitious two-stage
rocket program that topped a
V-2 missile base with a
WAC Corporal rocket.
The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of almost 400 kilometers, higher than even modern
Space Shuttles fly today.
Launched
under the direction of the
General Electric Company,
the Bumper 2 was used primarily for
testing rocket systems and for research on the
upper atmosphere.
Bumper 2 rockets carried small payloads that
allowed them to measure attributes including air temperature and
cosmic ray impacts.
Seven years later, the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik I and Sputnik II, the first
satellites into Earth orbit.
In response, in 1958, the
US created NASA.
APOD: 2001 August 31 - The Flight of Helios
Explanation:
Solar-powered,
remotely piloted, and flying at about 25 miles per hour,
NASA's Helios
aircraft, is
pictured
above at 10,000 feet in skies northwest of Kauai, Hawaii on August 13.
This ultralight propeller driven aircraft, essentially a flying wing
with 14 electric engines, was built by
AeroVironment Inc.
Covered with solar cells, Helios' impressive 247 foot wide wing
exceeds the wing span and even overall length of a
Boeing
747 jet airliner.
Climbing during daylight hours, the prototype aircraft
ultimately
reached an altitude just short of 100,000 feet,
breaking records for non-rocket powered
flight.
Helios is intended as a technology demonstrator, but
regular, long-duration flights at that altitude
could be used for environmental monitoring
missions and, communications relays.
In the extremely thin air 100,000 feet above Earth's surface, the flight
of Helios also
simulates
conditions for
winged
flight in the
atmosphere
of Mars.
APOD: 2001 July 23 - Atlantis to Orbit
Explanation:
Birds
don't fly this high.
Airplanes don't go this fast.
The Statue of Liberty
weighs less.
No species
other than human can even comprehend what is going on,
nor could any human just a millennium ago.
The launch of a
rocket bound for space is an event that
inspires awe
and challenges description.
Pictured above, the
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off to visit the
International Space Station
during the early morning hours of July 12.
From a standing start, the two million kilogram
rocket ship left to circle the
Earth where the
outside air is too thin to breathe and where there is
little
noticeable onboard gravity.
Rockets bound for space are now
launched from somewhere on Earth
about once a week.
APOD: 2001 May 25 - Saturn The Giant
Explanation:
Forty years ago today (May 25, 1961) U.S. president
John
Kennedy announced the goal of landing Americans on the Moon
by the end of the decade.
Kennedy's ambitious
speech triggered
a nearly unprecedented
peacetime technological mobilization and one result was the
Saturn V moon
rocket.
Its development directed by rocket pioneer Wernher Von Braun,
the three stage
Saturn
V stood over 36 stories tall.
It had a cluster of five
first
stage engines
fueled by
liquid oxygen and kerosene which together were
capable of producing 7.5 million pounds of thrust.
Giant Saturn V rockets
ultimately hurled nine
Apollo missions to the
Moon and back again with six landing on
the
lunar surface.
The first landing, by
Apollo 11, occurred on July 20, 1969 achieving
Kennedy's goal.
Bathed in light, this
Saturn V
awaits an April 11, 1970 launch on the
third lunar landing mission, Apollo 13.
APOD: 2001 May 19 - Damage to Apollo 13
Explanation:
In April of 1970,
after an oxygen tank exploded and crippled their service module, the
Apollo 13
astronauts were forced to abandon plans to make the third human
lunar landing.
The extent of
the damage is revealed in
this grainy, grim photo, taken as the service
module was
drifting away -- jettisoned only hours
prior to the command module's reentry and eventual safe splashdown.
An entire panel on the side of the
service
module has been blown away and extensive internal damage is apparent.
Visible below the gutted compartment is a radio antenna and the large,
bell-shaped nozzle of the service module's rocket engine.
APOD: 2001 May 5 - Shepard Flies Freedom 7
Explanation:
Forty years ago today
(May 5, 1961), at the
dawn of the space age,
NASA controllers "lit the candle" and sent
Alan Shepard arcing into space atop
a Redstone rocket.
The picture shows the pressure-suited Shepard before launch in his
cramped space capsule dubbed
"Freedom 7".
Broadcast live to a global television audience,
the
flight of Freedom 7 - the first space flight by an American - followed
less than a month after the first human venture into space
by Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
Freedom 7's
historic flight was suborbital,
lasting only about 15 minutes, but
during it Shepard demonstrated manual control of his capsule.
Naval aviator Shepard was chosen as one
of the original seven
Mercury Program astronauts.
He considered
this first flight the greatest
challenge and actively sought the assignment.
Shepard's career as an astronaut spanned a remarkable
period in human achievement and in 1971
he walked on the moon as commander of the
Apollo 14 mission.
A true pioneer and intrepid explorer,
Alan Shepard died in 1998
at age 74.
APOD: 2001 April 9 - Mars Odyssey Lifts Off for Mars
Explanation:
Next stop: Mars.
On Saturday the
2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft
lifted off from
Cape Canaveral,
Florida on a path to enter orbit around
Mars in late October.
Pictured
above, a Delta II rocket
lifted the robot spacecraft,
located in the nose cone, off the launch pad,
while a camera mounted on the side
of the rocket took the inset picture.
The Odyssey orbiter will map the locations of
chemical elements and
minerals, look for
evidence of water,
and measure the
Martian radiation environment.
These data will help NASA better determine whether
life ever arose on Mars, better understand the
climate and
geology or Mars, and better plan for
future human exploration.
The spacecraft's name is a tribute to
2001: A Space Odyssey,
an epic fictional story of future space exploration
written by
Arthur C. Clarke.
APOD: 2001 March 16 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
Explanation:
Robert H. Goddard, one
of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was
born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882.
As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic
"War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of space flight.
By 1926 he had designed, built, and flown
the
world's first liquid fuel rocket.
Launched
75 years ago today
from his aunt Effie's farm in
Auburn Massachusetts, the rocket, dubbed "Nell", rose to an
altitude of 41 feet in a flight that lasted about 2 1/2 seconds.
Pictured
here Goddard stands next to the 10 foot tall rocket, holding
the launch stand.
To achieve a stable
flight
without the need for fins
the rocket's heavy
motor is located
at the top, fed by lines from
liquid oxygen and gasoline fuel tanks at the bottom.
During his career Goddard was ridiculed by the press
for suggesting that rockets could be flown to
the Moon, but he kept up his experiments supported in part by the
Smithsonian Institution and championed by
Charles
Lindbergh.
Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his
rockets
were many years ahead of their time.
Goddard was awarded over 200 patents in rocket technology,
most of them after his death in 1945.
A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard
landed humans on the Moon in 1969.
APOD: 2001 February 19 - Shuttle Plume Shadow Points to Moon
Explanation:
Why would the shadow of a
space shuttle
launch plume point toward the Moon?
Two weeks ago during the launch of
Atlantis, the
Sun,
Earth,
Moon,
and rocket were all properly aligned for
this photogenic coincidence.
First, for the
space shuttle's plume to cast a long shadow,
the time of day must be either near
sunrise or
sunset.
Next, just at sunset, the
shadow
is the longest and extends all the way to the
horizon.
Finally, during a
Full Moon, the
Sun and
Moon are on
opposite sides of the sky.
Just after
sunset, for example,
the Sun is slightly below the
horizon, and,
in the other direction,
the Moon is slightly above the
horizon.
Therefore, as
Atlantis blasted off, just after
sunset,
its shadow projected away from the Sun
toward the opposite horizon, where the
Full Moon just happened to be.
APOD: 2001 February 17 - Happy Birthday Jules Verne
Explanation:
One hundred seventy-three years ago on February 8th,
Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France.
Inspired by a lifelong fascination with machines,
Verne wrote visionary works about
"Extraordinary Voyages" including
such terrestrial travels as
Around the World in 80 Days,
Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
In 1865 he published the story of three adventurers who undertook a journey
From the Earth to the Moon.
Verne's characters rode a
"projectile-vehicle"
fired from a huge cannon constructed in Florida, USA.
Does that sound vaguely
familiar?
A century later,
the Saturn V rocket and NASA's
Apollo program finally
turned this work of fiction into fact, propelling
adventuresome trios on what
was perhaps Verne's most extraordinary voyage.
This stirring floodlit view shows the Apollo 9 space-vehicle
atop its Saturn V.
Launched from a spaceport
in Florida in 1969,
the Apollo 9 crew were
the first to test all lunar landing hardware in space.
APOD: 2001 January 6 - Apollo 17's Moonship
Explanation:
Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module
Challenger was
designed for flight in the vacuum of space.
This sharp picture from the command module
America, shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.
Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of
the moonship with the bell of the
ascent rocket engine itself underneath.
The hatch allowing
access to the lunar surface is visible in the front
and a round radar antenna appears at the top.
This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on
the moon and returning
the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module in December
of 1972 - but
where is Challenger now?
Its descent stage remains at the Apollo 17 landing site,
Taurus-Littrow.
The ascent stage was intentionally crashed nearby
after being jettisoned from the command module prior to
the astronauts' return to planet Earth.
Apollo 17's mission
was the sixth and last time astronauts
have landed on the moon.
APOD: 2000 October 12 - HETE-2 Rides Pegasus
Explanation:
The
Stargazer,
a modified Lockheed L-1011 aircraft, soared into
the skies above
Kwajalein Atoll in
the pacific on October 9th.
A small satellite observatory known as
the High Energy Transient Explorer - 2
(HETE-2) was tucked into
Stargazer's winged
Pegasus
rocket, slung beneath the large trimotor jet's
fuselage.
Dropped
from its mother ship, the Pegasus then successfully flew
HETE-2 into orbit.
HETE-2's mission
is to hunt gamma-ray bursts, brief, random
flashes of high energy photons from the distant cosmos.
Gamma-ray bursts are impressive, believed to be
the most powerful explosions in the Universe, but
so few have been well located and studied that the
nature of the
bursters themselves is still shrouded in mystery.
HETE-2's x-ray and gamma-ray instruments will be able to rapidly
alert ground-based observatories
to point toward ongoing, bright gamma-ray bursts.
Communications antennae and solar panels neatly folded,
HETE-2 is seen
here being carefully enclosed in the Pegasus nose fairing.
APOD: 2000 July 18 - A Russian Proton Rocket Launches Zvezda
Explanation:
The Russian Proton rocket is the tallest rocket in routine use.
First deployed in 1965, the
rocket stands typically 40 meters tall,
can carry unusually heavy payloads into space,
and maintains a high record of reliability.
The Proton can be configured to launch satellites into orbit,
to carry modules to a
space station, and to carry people.
The satellites a
Proton Rocket has launched include
Iridium,
GRANAT, and, just last month,
Sirius 1.
The Proton frequently launched modules that docked with the
Mir Space Station.
Pictured above on July 12, a Proton rocket launches the
Zvezda module which is
scheduled to be added as the third major component of the
International Space Station next week.
The Proton is launched from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakstan.
APOD: 2000 June 17 - The Last Moon Shot
Explanation:
In 1865 Jules Verne predicted the invention of a space capsule that
could carry people.
In his science fiction story
"From the Earth to the Moon", he outlined his vision of
a cannon in Florida so powerful that it could shoot a
"Projectile-Vehicle" carrying three adventurers
to the Moon.
Over 100 years later,
NASA, guided by
Wernher Von Braun's vision, produced the
Saturn V rocket.
From a
spaceport in Florida,
this rocket turned Verne's fiction into fact,
launching 9 Apollo Lunar missions and
allowing 12 astronauts to walk on the Moon.
Pictured is the last moon shot,
Apollo 17, awaiting a night launch in December of 1972.
Spotlights play on the rocket and launch pad
while the full Moon looms
in the background.
Humans have not
walked on on the lunar surface
since.
APOD: 2000 May 28 - Skylab Over Earth
Explanation:
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a
Saturn V rocket in May 1973.
Skylab was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes
stayed as long as two and a half months.
Many scientific tests were performed on
Skylab, including astronomical observations in
ultraviolet and
X-ray
light.
Some of these observations yielded valuable information about
Comet Kohoutek, our Sun
and about the
mysterious X-ray background -
radiation that comes from all over the sky.
Skylab fell back to earth on 11 July 1979.
APOD: 2000 April 15 - Surveyor Hops
Explanation:
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from
images returned by the
US Surveyor 6 lander.
Surveyor 6 was not the
first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing
on the Moon ... but it was
the first to land and then lift off again!
After the spacecraft touched down near the center of
the Moon's nearside
in November of 1967, NASA controllers
commanded it to hop.
Briefly firing its rocket engine
and lifting itself some 4 meters above the surface,
the Surveyor moved about 2.5 meters
to one side before setting down again.
The hopping success of Surveyor 6
essentially marked the completion of
the Surveyor series main mission -
to determine if the lunar terrain was safe for
the planned Apollo landings.
APOD: September 18, 1999 - Mercury Astronauts and a Redstone
Explanation:
Space suited
project Mercury astronauts
John H. Glenn,
Virgil I. Grissom, and
Alan B. Shepard Jr.
(left to right) are posing in front of a
Redstone rocket
in this vintage 1961 NASA publicity photo.
Project Mercury was the
first U.S. program designed to put humans in space.
It resulted in 6 flights
using one-man capsules and
Redstone and
Atlas rockets.
Shortly after the
first U.S. manned flight on May 5, 1961, a suborbital flight piloted
by Alan Shepard, President Kennedy announced
the goal of a manned lunar landing by 1970.
This goal was achieved by NASA's
Apollo program and Shepard himself
walked on the moon
as commander of the Apollo 14 mission.
Alan Shepard
passed away in 1998.
Virgil Grissom died in a tragic fire
during an Apollo launch pad test in 1967.
Senator
John Glenn flew again on the
25th voyage of the Space Shuttle Discovery.
APOD: July 27, 1999 - Chandra X Ray Telescope
Explanation:
Wrapped in protective blankets and mounted atop an
Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) rocket,
the Chandra X-ray Telescope is
seen in this wide-angle view
before launch snuggled into the
space shuttle Columbia's payload bay.
Columbia's crew released
the telescope, named in honor of the late Nobel Laureate
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar,
into orbit on Friday, July 23rd,
where it is now undergoing check out and
activation of its scientific instruments.
To help realize its enormous potential for
exploration of the distant Universe at
X-ray energies, controllers
will perform a series
of firings in the coming days
which will eventually
boost the 10,000 pound telescope into a highly ecentric orbit.
In fact, the final working orbit for Chandra
will range from a close point of about 6,200 miles out
to 87,000 miles or one third of
the distance to the Moon.
The elongated orbit will carry Chandra's
sensitive
X-ray detectors beyond interference caused
by the Earth's
radiation belts allowing Chandra to make about 55 hours
of continuous observations per orbit.
The shuttle Colombia, commanded by
Eileen Collins is
scheduled to land this evening at
11:20 pm EDT at Kennedy Space Center.
APOD: July 20, 1999 - Moon Rocket
Explanation:
On July 20, 1969, only four days after leaving planet Earth 250,000
miles behind them, Apollo 11 astronauts
landed on the moon - the first
humans to reach another celestial body.
But the Saturn V rocket which took them
there actually "began" the
journey two months before traveling at a blinding speed
of one mile per hour.
Seen here in a dramatic aerial view, the giant moon rocket rides on
top of a slow moving
crawler-transporter vehicle toward
Kennedy Space Center's
launch complex 39 pad A.
The NASA History Office's new
Apollo web site celebrates
the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing
with this and
other images, documents, and collections of links commemorating
this profound
achievement and the people who made it possible.
APOD: July 17, 1999 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
Explanation:
Robert H. Goddard, one
of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was
born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882.
As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic
"War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of space flight.
By 1926 he had designed, built, and launched
the world's first liquid
fuel rocket.
During his career he was ridiculed by the press
for suggesting that rockets could be flown to
the Moon, but he kept up his experiments
in rocketry supported in part by the
Smithsonian Institution and championed by
Charles Lindbergh.
Pictured above in 1937 in the
desert near Roswell, New Mexico, Goddard
examines a nose cone and parachute from one of his test rockets.
Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his
rockets were many years ahead of their time.
He died in 1945 holding over 200 patents in rocket technology.
A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard
landed humans on the Moon in 1969.
APOD: July 14, 1999 - Moon, Planets, and Rocket Trails
Explanation:
Are you an
early riser?
Over the last month or so, the
bright planets Jupiter and Saturn have
come to adorn eastern skies before
sunrise.
In fact,
astrophotographer Joe Orman anticipated that an early bird's
reward for looking east on June 10 would be this pleasing
arrangement of Jupiter (top right), a crescent Moon, and
Saturn (near center),
but he was surprised to also find these
eerie, iridescent clouds wafting through the pre-dawn sky over
suburban Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
The clouds turned out to be
rocket
engine
trails from
defense missile tests at the range in
White Sands, New Mexico ... about 300 miles away.
While the
Moon's phase is just past
new moon,
gone now from the pre-dawn horizon, brilliant
Jupiter and
Saturn can still be seen high toward the southeast in the
constellation Aries.
APOD: July 12, 1999 - A Delta Rocket Launches
Explanation:
A Delta rocket is
pictured launching NASA's
FUSE
satellite earlier this month.
In use since 1960, Delta rockets have been
launched successfully over
250 times.
Scientific satellites placed into orbit by a Delta rocket include
IUE,
COBE,
ROSAT,
EUVE,
WIND,
and RXTE.
Commercial launches include
Iridium.
Delta launches have placed
Navstar
Global Positioning System satellites into orbit.
Delta rockets are manufactured for the US
Air Force and
NASA by
Boeing.
APOD: April 15, 1999 - Apollo 17s Moonship
Explanation:
Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module
Challenger was
designed for flight in the vacuum of space.
This sharp picture from the command module
America, shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.
Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of
the moonship with the bell of the
ascent rocket engine itself underneath.
The hatch allowing
access to the lunar surface is visible in the front
and a round radar antenna appears at the top.
This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on
the moon and returning
the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module in December
of 1972 - but
where is Challenger now?
Its descent stage remains at the Apollo 17 landing site,
Taurus-Littrow.
The ascent stage crashed nearby
after being jettisoned from the command module prior to
the astronauts' return to planet Earth.
Apollo 17's mission
was the sixth and last time astronauts
have landed on the moon.
APOD: April 5, 1999 - The Launch of STARDUST
Explanation:
NASA launches
powerful rockets. One such rocket, the
Delta II,
recently lofted the
STARDUST mission into the
nearby Solar System.
STARDUST is expected to photograph
Comet Wild in 2004 as it zooms by, and return
interstellar dust
samples to Earth in 2006.
Currently,
much remains unknown about the size distribution,
primordial composition, and even shapes of these
dust grains.
Above, a side-mounted camera photographed the
separation of the
solid rocket boosters
above the receding Earth.
APOD: February 6, 1999 - The First Explorer
Explanation:
The first US spacecraft was
Explorer 1.
The cylindrical 30 pound satellite
was launched (above) as the fourth stage of a Jupiter-C rocket
(a modified
US Army Redstone
ballistic missile) and achieved orbit on January 31, 1958.
Explorer I carried instrumentation to measure internal and external
temperatures, micrometeorite impacts,
and an experiment designed by
James A. Van Allen to measure
the density of electrons and ions in space.
The measurements made by Van Allen's experiment led to an unexpected and
startling discovery -- an earth-encircling belt of high energy electrons
and ions trapped in the
magnetosphere now known as the
Van Allen Belt.
Explorer I ceased transmitting on February 28 of that year but
remained in orbit until March of 1970.
APOD: January 8, 1999 - Invader From Earth
Explanation:
These technicians are working on the solar-paneled
Mars Polar Lander -
yet another robotic spacecraft scheduled to invade the
red planet.
Mars Polar Lander is part of a
series of missions focusing on a search for
evidence of past or present life.
Successfully launched atop a Delta II
rocket on January 3rd, it should
be the first to make a soft landing near Mars' South Pole.
Its arrival is planned for December,
springtime for the Martian Southern Hemisphere.
Riding along are
two separate microprobes intended to
penetrate up to 2 meters beneath the soil in
an attempt to directly determine if subsurface water ice is present.
Mars Polar Lander
will also carry another first to Mars ...
a microphone.
APOD: December 24, 1998 - Mars Climate Orbiter Launches
Explanation:
Looking down from atop a
Delta II rocket
blasting skyward, solid fuel
boosters fall away (left) and the Earth's limb slides into view.
These pictures from the
launch of the Mars Climate Orbiter
were taken as it climbed away from
Cape Canaveral Air Station
Space Launch Complex 17 on December 11.
This spacecraft won't arrive at Mars in time
for Christmas though, as its
cruise to the red planet will require about 9 1/2 Earth
months to complete.
Once it does get there it will use
aerobraking to help establish
a polar science mapping orbit for studying the martian atmosphere.
The orbiter is also scheduled to act as a communications relay for
the soon to be launched
Mars Polar Lander.
APOD: December 13, 1998 - Blasting Off from the Moon
Explanation:
How did the
astronauts
get back from the
Moon? The
Lunar Module
that landed two astronauts on the Moon actually came apart. The top part
containing the astronauts carried additional rocket fuel which allowed it
to blast away, leaving the bottom part on the Moon forever. The top part
would later meet up with the
Command
Module and its astronaut pilot, which
were continually orbiting the Moon. All would then return to Earth
together. The
above
picture was taken by a robot TV camera left on the Moon
by the crew of
Apollo 16.
The frame above captures the top part of the
Lunar Module just at it was blasting off.
APOD: December 10, 1998 - Assembling The International Space Station
Explanation:
Batteries and solar panels were included with this version of
the International Space Station (ISS) but some
assembly is still required.
On Saturday, December 5th, the
STS-88 crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavor achieved the
in orbit docking of the
Zarya and
Unity (foreground) ISS modules.
On Monday, astronauts
James Newman (left) and
Jerry Ross continued the assembly
procedures connecting power and data cables
during the first of three planned spacewalks.
Ground controllers were then able to successfully activate the ISS.
Now orbiting planet Earth at an altitude of about 248 miles,
Endeavour and
the ISS are reported to be in excellent shape and
crew members plan to enter the new space station today.
Five Americans, one Russian, and the Unity module itself
were lifted into orbit by the shuttle on Friday, December 4,
while the Zarya (sunrise) module was launched on a
Proton rocket from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan on November 20.
APOD: December 5, 1998 - Surveyor Hops
Explanation:
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from
images returned by the
US Surveyor 6 lander.
Surveyor 6 was not the
first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing
on the Moon ... but it was
the first to land and then lift off again!
After touching down near the center
of the Moon's nearside
in November of 1967, NASA controllers
commanded the spacecraft to hop.
Briefly firing its rocket engine
and lifting itself some 4 meters above the surface,
the Surveyor moved about 2.5 meters
to one side before setting down again.
The hopping success of Surveyor 6
essentially marked the completion of
the Surveyor series main mission -
to determine if the lunar terrain was safe for
the planned Apollo landings.
APOD: October 29, 1998 - John Glenn: Friendship 7 To Discovery
Explanation:
Rehearsing for his
historic flight on February 20, 1962,
Mercury program astronaut
John H. Glenn Jr. works
in a cramped training capsule preparing
for a few hours'
voyage through space.
Dubbed
Friendship 7, his own snug spacecraft was launched by an Atlas
rocket and carried Glenn
three times around planet Earth
at an altitude of about 120 miles,
returning him safely to a "splashdown" in the Atlantic Ocean.
The first American in orbit,
Senator Glenn's remarkable return to space will be 36 years later
as a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle
Discovery mission STS-95.
Discovery is a roomier craft which will carry a crew of 7
and an array of scientific payloads, such as the
International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker.
Scheduled for
launch today at 2:00 PM Eastern Time,
Discovery will orbit at an altitude of 320 miles and land
after 8 days at Kennedy Space Center's shuttle landing facility.
Godspeed the
crew of STS-95 !
APOD: July 24, 1998 - Alan B. Shepard Jr. 1923 1998
Explanation:
On another Friday (May 5, 1961),
at the dawn of the space age,
NASA controllers "lit the candle" and sent
Alan B. Shepard Jr. arcing into space atop
a Redstone rocket.
The picture shows the pressure-suited Shepard before the launch
in his
cramped space capsule dubbed
"Freedom 7" .
This
historic flight - the first spaceflight by an American -
made Shepard
a national hero.
Born in East Derry, New Hampshire on November 18, 1923,
Shepard graduated from the United States Naval Academy
in 1944 and went on to train and serve as a Naval Aviator.
Chosen as one of the original seven
Mercury Program astronauts,
he considered
this first flight the greatest
challenge and actively sought the assignment.
Shepard's accomplishments in his career as an astronaut
spanned a remarkable
period in human achievement and in 1972
he walked on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission.
A true pioneer and intrepid explorer,
Alan Shepard died Tuesday at age 74
after a lengthy illness.
APOD: July 18, 1998 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
Explanation:
Robert H. Goddard, one
of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was
born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882.
As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic
"War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of spaceflight.
By 1926 he had designed, built, and launched
the world's first liquid
fuel rocket.
During his career he was ridiculed by the press
for suggesting that rockets could be flown to
the Moon, but he kept up his experiments
in rocketry supported in part by the
Smithsonian Institution and championed by
Charles Lindbergh.
Pictured above in 1937 in the
desert near Roswell, New Mexico, Goddard
examines a nose cone and parachute from one of his test rockets.
Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his
rockets were many years ahead of their time.
He died in 1945 holding over 200 patents in rocket technology.
A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard
landed humans on the Moon in 1969.
APOD: May 10, 1998 - Skylab Over Earth
Explanation:
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a
Saturn V rocket in May 1973.
Skylab was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes
stayed as long as two and a half months. Many scientific tests were
performed on Skylab, including astronomical observations in
ultraviolet and
X-ray
light. Some of these observations yielded valuable information about Comet
Kohoutek, our Sun
and about the mysterious X-ray background - radiation that comes from
all over the sky. Skylab fell back to earth on 11 July 1979.
APOD: April 4, 1998 - Mercury Astronauts and a Redstone
Explanation:
Space suited
project Mercury astronauts
John H. Glenn,
Virgil I. Grissom, and
Alan B. Shepard Jr.
(left to right) are posing in front of a
Redstone rocket
in this vintage 1961 NASA publicity photo.
Project Mercury was the
first U.S. program designed to put humans in space.
It resulted in 6 flights
using one-man capsules and
Redstone and
Atlas rockets.
Shortly after the
first U.S. manned flight on May 5, 1961, a suborbital flight piloted
by Alan Shepard, President Kennedy announced
the goal of a manned lunar landing by 1970.
This goal was achieved by NASA's
Apollo program and Shepard himself
walked on the moon
as commander of the Apollo 14 mission.
Virgil Grissom died in a tragic fire
during an Apollo launch pad test in 1967.
Senator John Glenn will fly again on the 25th voyage of the
Space Shuttle Discovery.
APOD: March 28, 1998 - Von Braun's Wheel
Explanation:
Orbiting 1,075 miles above the Earth, a 250 foot wide, inflated,
reinforced nylon "wheel"
was conceived in the early 1950s to function
as a navigational aid, meteorological station, military platform, and
way station for space exploration by rocket pioneer
Wernher von Braun.
The wheel-shaped station could be easily rotated creating artificial
gravity so that the astronauts would not suffer the effects of
prolonged weightlessness.
Von Braun and his team favored building a
permanently occupied
Earth orbiting space station from which to stage a lunar exploration
program.
But in the 1960s NASA adopted
the Apollo Program, which called for
astronauts to transfer to a landing vehicle after achieving lunar
orbit, bypassing the construction of von Braun's wheel.
APOD: February 13, 1998 - Explorer I
Explanation:
Inaugurating
the era of space exploration for the US,
the First Explorer was
launched into Earth orbit
forty years ago (February 1, 1958)
by the Army Ballistic Missle Agency.
The
Explorer I satellite weighed about 30 pounds, was
6 feet long, 6 inches in diameter and consisted of batteries,
transmitters, and
scientific instrumentation built into
the fourth stage of
a Jupiter-C rocket.
Foreshadowing NASA and
the adventurous and
successful Explorer Program,
Explorer I bolstered national prestige
in the wake of Sputnik.
The satellite also contributed to a
spectacular scientific bonanza -
the discovery of Earth-girdling belts of magnetically
trapped charged particles now known as the
Van Allen Radiation Belts.
APOD: February 6, 1998 - Happy Birthday Jules Verne
Explanation:
Sunday marks the 170th anniversary of the birth of
Jules Verne (born in Nantes, France on the 8th of February, 1828).
Inspired by a lifelong fascination with machines,
Verne wrote visionary works about
"Extraordinary Voyages" including
such terrestrial travels as
Around the World in 80 Days,
Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
In 1865 he published the story of three adventurers who undertook a journey
From the Earth to the Moon.
Verne's characters rode a
"projectile-vehicle"
fired from a huge cannon constructed in Florida.
Does that sound familiar?
A century later,
the Saturn V rocket and NASA's
Apollo program finally
turned this work of fiction into fact, propelling
adventuresome trios on what
was perhaps Verne's most extraordinary voyage.
This stirring floodlit view shows the Apollo 9 space-vehicle
atop its Saturn V.
Launched from a spaceport in Florida in 1969,
the Apollo 9 crew were
the first to test all lunar landing hardware in space .
APOD: January 8, 1998 - Destination: Moon
Explanation:
Tuesday, January 6, at 9:28 p.m. EST, NASA's
Lunar Prospector spacecraft
climbed into the sky above
Cape Canaveral Air Station
riding an Athena II rocket.
Representing NASA's first Moon mission since the 1972 flight of
Apollo 17,
this launch also occurred on the 30th anniversary of the launch of the
Surveyor 7 lunar lander.
The three stage launch vehicle's fiery trail is in the foreground
of this time exposure
while
the Moon, near
first quarter phase,
is shown in the background
some 250,000 miles from the Cape.
Prospector will cover that
distance
in about 5 days, entering lunar orbit on Sunday.
Prospector carries no cameras to image the
well-photographed lunar surface.
Instead, its
array of instruments will map the lunar gravity,
magnetic field, internal structure, and surface composition.
The result, a detailed global view of current
lunar properties,
is expected to
dramatically impact humanity's
understanding of the origins of
the Moon and the Solar System.
From its
vantage point in polar orbit,
only 63 miles above the lunar surface,
Prospector will also conduct a sensitive
search for water ice which may be preserved
in permanent shadow at
the Moon's South Pole.
APOD: November 22, 1997 - Surveyor Hops
Explanation:
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from
images returned by the
US Surveyor 6 lander.
Surveyor 6 was not the
first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing
on the Moon ... but it was
the first to land and then lift off again!
After touching down near the center
of the Moon's nearside
in November of 1967, NASA controllers
commanded the spacecraft to hop.
Briefly firing its rocket engine
and lifting itself some 4 meters above the surface,
the Surveyor moved about 2.5 meters
to one side before setting down again.
The hopping success of Surveyor 6
essentially marked the completion of
the Surveyor series main mission -
to determine if the lunar terrain was safe for
the planned Apollo landings.
APOD: October 16, 1997 - Cassini To Venus
Explanation:
NASA's Saturn Explorer Cassini with
ESA's Titan Probe Huygens attached
successfully rocketed into the skies early yesterday morning.
The mighty Titan 4B Centaur rocket
is seen here across the water gracefully arcing away
from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Station.
Cassini, a sophisticated,
bus-sized robot spacecraft
is now on its way ... to Venus,
the first planetary way point in its 7 year, 2.2 billion mile
journey to Saturn.
The mission profile calls for Cassini to swing by Venus during
April 1998 and June 1999, Earth in August 1999,
and Jupiter in December 2000.
During each of these
"gravity assist" encounters the six ton
spacecraft will pick up energy needed to
reach Saturn in July 2004.
Cassini's mission is the most ambitious voyage of
interplanetary exploration ever mounted
by humanity and the Huygens Probe's planned descent to
the surface of Titan
will be the most distant landing ever attempted.
APOD: September 11, 1997 - Mars Global Surveyor: Aerobraking
Explanation:
Completing a 10 month journey,
another spacecraft from Earth
arrives at Mars today.
The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)
is scheduled to fire its main rocket engine
for 22 minutes at 6:17 p.m. PDT and
enter a highly elliptical orbit, with a low point 186 miles and
a high point 34,800 miles above the surface
of Mars.
This robot spacecraft is aptly named.
Its mission is to undertake a detailed
planetwide survey
of Mars.
But first MGS must circularize its orbit, lowering the high point
to about 250 miles.
Instead of relying solely on its rocket engine,
MGS mission controllers will use a fuel-saving technique known as
aerobraking - dipping
the spacecraft
into the Martian atmosphere where it will
encounter increased atmospheric drag.
This early artist's conception emphasizes the drag
created by the wing-like solar panels.
The cumulative effect
should find MGS in a more circular
mapping orbit by March 1998.
To successfully use aerobraking, mission controllers must achieve
an exact orbit and will be
handicapped by a limited knowledge of the thickness of
the Martian atmosphere.
They may even need to alter the
spacecraft's course to compensate for changes
in Martian weather.
APOD: June 15, 1997 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
Explanation:
Robert H. Goddard, one
of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was
born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882.
As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic
"War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of spaceflight.
By 1926 he had designed, built, and launched
the world's first liquid
fuel rocket. During his career he was ridiculed by the press
for suggesting that rockets could be flown to
the Moon, but he kept up his experiments
in rocketry supported in part by the
Smithsonian Institution and championed by
Charles Lindbergh.
Pictured above in 1937 in the
desert near Roswell, New Mexico, Goddard
examines a nose cone and parachute from one of his test rockets.
Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his
rockets were many years ahead of their time.
He died in 1945 holding over 200 patents in rocket technology.
A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard
landed humans on the Moon in 1969.
APOD: May 18, 1997 - The First Explorer
Explanation:
The first US spacecraft was
Explorer 1.
The cylindrical 30 pound satellite
was launched (above) as the fourth stage of a
Jupiter-C rocket (a modified
US Army Redstone
ballistic missile) and achieved orbit on January 31, 1958.
Explorer I carried instrumentation to measure internal and external
temperatures, micrometeorite impacts,
and an experiment designed by
James A. Van Allen to measure
the density of electrons and ions in space.
The measurements made by Van Allen's experiment led to an unexpected and
startling discovery -- an earth-encircling belt of high energy electrons
and ions trapped in the
magnetosphere now known as the
Van Allen Belt.
Explorer I ceased
transmitting on February 28 of that year but
remained in orbit until March of 1970.
APOD: May 4, 1997 - The Last Moon Shot
Explanation:
In 1865
Jules Verne predicted the invention of a space capsule that
could carry people.
In his science fiction story
"From the Earth to the Moon", he outlined his vision of
a cannon in Florida so powerful that it could shoot a
"Projectile-Vehicle" carrying
three adventurers to the Moon.
Over 100 years later,
NASA, guided by
Wernher Von Braun's vision, produced the
Saturn V rocket.
From a
spaceport in Florida,
this rocket turned Verne's fiction into fact,
launching 9 Apollo Lunar missions and
allowing 12 astronauts to walk on the Moon.
Pictured is the last moon shot,
Apollo 17, awaiting a night launch in December of 1972.
Spotlights play on the rocket and launch pad
while the full Moon looms
in the background.
Humans have not walked on the lunar surface since.
Should we return to the Moon?
APOD: April 6, 1997 - Mercury Astronauts and a Redstone
Explanation:
Space suited
project Mercury astronauts
John H. Glenn,
Virgil I. Grissom, and
Alan B. Shepard Jr.
(left to right) are pictured here posing in front of a
Redstone rocket
in this vintage 1961 NASA publicity photo.
Project Mercury was the
first U.S. program designed to put humans in space.
It resulted in 6 flights
using one-man capsules and
Redstone and
Atlas rockets.
Shortly after the
first U.S. manned flight on May 5, 1961, a suborbital flight piloted
by Alan Shepard, President Kennedy announced
the goal of a manned lunar landing by 1970. This goal was achieved by NASA's
Apollo program
and Shepard himself walked on the moon
as commander of the Apollo 14 mission.
APOD: November 10, 1996 - Columbia Launches
Explanation:
Rocket engines blazing,
the Space Shuttle Columbia
arcs into Florida's morning sky
after lifting off from pad 39-A at
Kennedy Space Center.
Seen here in January of 1996, this space shuttle
has been operational for more than 15 years -- racking up
20 flights and over 77 million miles in orbit while spending 177 days
in space.
The first member of NASA's shuttle fleet, Columbia shares it name with
another famous spacecraft launched from pad 39-A,
the Apollo 11 command module.
Having begun its career
with STS-1 in April of 1981, Columbia,
also kown as
orbiter vehicle 102 (OV-102),
is now being prepared for
the STS-80 mission scheduled to launch this month.
APOD: November 9, 1996 - Surveyor Hops
Explanation:
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from
images returned by the
US Surveyor 6 lander.
Surveyor 6 was not the
first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing
on the Moon ... but it was
the first to land and then lift off again!
After touching down near the center
of the Moon's nearside
in November of 1967, NASA controllers
commanded the spacecraft to hop.
Briefly firing its rocket engine
and lifting itself some 4 meters above the surface,
the Surveyor moved about 2.5 meters
to one side before setting down again.
The hopping success of Surveyor 6
essentially marked the completion of
the Surveyor series main mission -
to determine if the lunar terrain was safe for
the planned Apollo landings.
APOD: November 3, 1996 - Surveyor Night Launch
Explanation:
In early November of 1967, a dramatic night launch of an
Atlas Centaur rocket
from Cape Canaveral lofted the successful Surveyor 6 spacecraft
toward the Moon.
The Surveyor series of robotic probes carried out the first US
lunar soft landings
in preparation for the Apollo program.
Still in use today,
Atlas Centaur rockets
launched many
lunar and planetary probes in the 60s and 70s.
APOD: July 2, 1996 - NASA's Latest Rockets: X-33
Explanation:
What will NASA rockets look like in the future?
Today's
announcement
gave one indication. Today
Vice-
President Al Gore announced that the
Lockheed Martin Corporation
will work with NASA to produce a reusable rocket with a remote pilot.
Currently designated the
X-33
program, the flight demonstration rocket design will
utilize only a single stage, cost relatively little per launch, and be
ready for re-launch within days. It is expected that an
X-33 type
rocket will be in use by NASA by the the year 2000. Pictured above is
an artistic depiction of the candidate vehicle.
APOD: June 9, 1996 - Blasting Off From the Moon
Explanation:
How did the
astronauts
get back from the
Moon? The
Lunar Module
that landed two astronauts on the Moon actually came apart. The top part
containing the astronauts carried additional rocket fuel which allowed it
to blast away, leaving the bottom part on the Moon forever. The top part
would later meet up with the
Command
Module and its astronaut pilot, which
were continually orbiting the Moon. All would then return to Earth
together. The
above
picture was taken by a robot TV camera left on the Moon
by the crew of
Apollo 16.
The frame above captures the top part of the
Lunar Module just at it was blasting off.
APOD: March 2, 1996 - Von Braun's Wheel
Explanation:
Orbiting 1,075 miles above the Earth, a 250 foot wide, inflated, reinforced
nylon "wheel" was
conceived in the early 1950s to function as a navigational
aid, meteorological station, military platform, and way
station for space exploration by
rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun.
The wheel shaped station could be easily rotated
creating artificial gravity so that the
astronauts would not suffer the effects of prolonged weightlessness.
Von Braun and his team favored building a
permanently occupied Earth orbiting space station from which to stage
a lunar exploration program.
But in the 1960s NASA adopted
the Apollo Program, which called
for astronauts to transfer to a lunar landing vehicle after achieving
lunar orbit, bypassing the construction of von Braun's wheel.
APOD: February 24, 1996 - Tanks for the Lift
Explanation:
Sixteen minutes after the liftoff of STS-29,
the Space Shuttle Discovery's jettisoned
External Tank (ET) is seen here, in a photograph
by shuttle astronaut James P. Bagian, falling back towards Earth.
The 154 foot long ET is the largest non-reusable component in the
Shuttle system. After carrying over 500,000 gallons of
liquid propellant to feed the
shuttle's main engines during liftoff, its ultimate fate
is to re-enter the atmosphere, break up and descend into a remote
ocean area. The side of
this ET shows a normal burn scar caused during
the separation of one of the reusable
solid rocket boosters.
APOD: February 10, 1996 - The First Explorer
Explanation:
The first US spacecraft was
Explorer 1.
The cylindrical 30 pound satellite
was launched (above) as the fourth stage of a
Jupiter-C rocket (a modified
US Army Redstone
ballistic missile) and achieved orbit on January 31, 1958.
Explorer I carried instrumentation to measure internal and external
temperatures, micrometeorite impacts,
and an experiment designed by
James A. Van Allen to measure
the density of electrons and ions in space.
The measurements made by Van Allen's experiment led to an unexpected and
startling discovery - an earth-encircling belt of high energy electrons
and ions trapped in the
magnetosphere - now known as the
Van Allen Belt.
Explorer I ceased
transmitting on February 28 of that year but
remained in orbit until March of 1970.
APOD: January 7, 1996 - Mercury Astronauts and a Redstone
Explanation: Space suited
project Mercury astronauts
John H. Glenn,
Virgil I. Grissom, and
Alan B. Shepard Jr.
(left to right) are pictured here posing in front of a
Redstone rocket
in this 1961 NASA publicity photo.
Project Mercury was the
first U.S. program designed to put humans in space.
It resulted in 6 manned flights
using one-man capsules and
Redstone and
Atlas rockets.
Shortly after the
first U.S. manned flight on May 5, 1961, a suborbital flight piloted
by Alan Shepard, President Kennedy announced
the goal of a manned lunar landing by 1970. This goal was achieved by NASA's
Apollo program
and Shepard himself walked on the moon
as a member of the Apollo 14 mission.
APOD: January 3, 1996 - The X-ray Timing Explorer
Explanation:
Launched
Saturday on a Delta rocket, the
X-ray
Timing Explorer (XTE) will watch the sky for rapid changes in
X-rays.
XTE carries
three separate X-ray telescopes. The
Proportional
Counter Array (PCA) and the
High Energy
X-ray Timing Experiment (HEXTE) will provide the best
timing information in the widest X-ray energy range yet available. They
will observe stellar systems that contain
black holes,
neutron stars, and
white dwarfs as well as study the
X-ray properties of the
centers of active
galaxies.
XTE's
All Sky
Monitor (ASM) will scan the sky every 90 minutes
to find new X-ray transients and track the variability of old ones. XTE has
a planned life time of two years.
APOD: December 25, 1995 - Earth Rise
Explanation:
During the 1968 Christmas season
Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders flew the
Apollo 8 command module
From the Earth to the Moon
and back (launched Dec. 21, achieved 10 lunar orbits, landed Dec. 27).
The Apollo 8
mission's impressive list of firsts includes;
the first manned flight using the Saturn V rocket,
the first humans to journey to the Earth's Moon,
and
the first to photograph the Earth from deep space.
The famous picture above, showing the Earth rising above the
Moon's limb as seen from lunar orbit, was a marvelous gift to the world.
This was astronaut James Lovell's third mission. His last flight would be
as commander of Apollo 13.
APOD: December 14, 1995 - An Atlas Centaur Rocket Launches
Explanation:
Atlas Centaur rockets have
launched over 75 successful unmanned missions.
These missions included the
Surveyor series - the first vehicles to make soft
landings on the
Moon,
Pioneer 10 and
11 - the first missions to fly by
Jupiter and
Saturn and the first man-made
objects able to leave our
Solar System, the
Viking missions which landed on
Mars, several satellites in the
High Energy Astrophysics
Observatory (HEAO)
series,
Pioneer Venus which circled and mapped the surface of
Venus, and
numerous
Intelsat
satellites. Of recent scientific interest was the
Atlas
launched
SOHO
mission which will continually observe the
Sun. Atlas rockets are
manufactured by
Lockheed Martin Co.
APOD: December 13, 1995 - A Delta Rocket Launches
Explanation:
A Delta rocket
is seen being launched in 1988. In use since 1960,
Delta
rockets have been launched successfully over 200 times. Scientific
satellites placed into orbit by a Delta rocket include
IUE,
COBE,
LAGEOS-I,
ROSAT,
EUVE,
GEOTAIL, and
WIND.
A Delta rocket is scheduled to launch the
X-ray
Timing Explorer Satellite (XTE) in the very near future.
Commercial launches include
INMARSAT.
Many recent Delta launches have placed
Navstar
Global Positioning
System satellites into orbit. Delta rockets are manufactured for the
USAF and NASA by
McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co.
APOD: December 8, 1995 - Descent To Jupiter
Explanation:
Hours ago, at about 5:00 pm EST (2200 GMT)
December 7, Galileo's descent probe
slammed into Jupiter's atmosphere.
Above is an artist's vision of the
probe's planned descent from a dramatic perspective.
The protective aeroshell, still glowing from the fiery entry,
is seen falling away,
the 8 foot parachute has deployed, and the orbiter (upper left) is
visible high above the cloud tops listening intently to the probe's
data transmissions. As illustrated the probe may have encountered
lightning, or at lower levels even water rain.
Ultimately, the probe was
expected to be vaporized by the intense
heat deep below the clouds.
NASA controllers have received telemetry signals
from the orbiter indicating that it has recorded
the probe's transmissions
and has subsequently successfully
fired its rocket engine entering orbit around Jupiter.
The first playback of the recorded data
to ground stations on Earth is scheduled for December 10-13.
Congratulations to the Galileo Team!
APOD: October 28, 1995 - The Delta Clipper
Explanation:
The
Delta Clipper experimental rocket or DC-X is
intended as a development vehicle to pave the way for a reusable
single stage to orbit rocket.
Shown here, in an artists conception, it has made several successful
test flights since its maiden voyage in August of 1993 -
taking off like a
rocket, hovering and moving
horizontally, and landing tail first on a designated landing pad.
The DC-X is actually too heavy and underpowered to achieve orbit,
but as part of NASA's Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology
Program, lessons learned operating the DC-X may help provide
science and industry cheaper access to space.
APOD: September 29, 1995 - The International Ultraviolet Explorer
Explanation:
The International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE)
was launched by a
NASA Delta rocket
in 1978 to provide a space telescope for
ultraviolet astronomy. A collaborative project among NASA,
ESA and the
British SRC (now PPARC) agencies, IUE's estimated lifetime was 3 to 5 years.
Amazingly, 17 years and 8 months later, it continues to operate, having
made over 100,000
observations
of comets, planets, stars, novae, supernovae, galaxies, and quasars.
The IUE
story is a truly remarkable but little
known success story which will continue.
To reduce costs, on September 30, 1995, the IUE team
at GSFC will turn over its science operations to the
ESA ground station in
Villafranca, Spain where the ESA/PPARC teams will
continue to make astronomical observations.
Congratulations to the
GSFC team
for outstanding service to astronomy. Good luck to IUE and best wishes
for continued success!
APOD: September 16, 1995 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
Explanation:
Robert H. Goddard, one
of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was
born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882.
As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic
"War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of spaceflight.
By 1926 he had designed, built, and launched
the world's first liquid
fuel rocket. During his career he was ridiculed by the press
for suggesting that rockets could be flown to
the Moon, but he kept up his experiments
in rocketry supported in part by the
Smithsonian Institution
and championed by
Charles Lindbergh.
Pictured above in 1937 in the
desert near Roswell New Mexico, Goddard
examines a nose cone and parachute from one of his test rockets.
Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his
rockets were many years ahead of their time.
He died in 1945 holding over 200 patents in rocket technology.
A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard
landed humans on the Moon in 1969.
APOD: September 9, 1995 - The Last Moon Shot
Explanation:
In 1865 Jules Verne predicted the invention of a space capsule that
could carry people. In his science fiction story
"From the Earth to the Moon", he outlined his vision of constructing
a cannon in Florida
so powerful that it could shoot a "Projectile-Vehicle"
carrying three adventurers to the Moon. Over 100 years later, NASA, guided by
Wernher Von Braun's vision, produced the
Saturn V rocket. This rocket
turned Verne's fiction into fact,
launching 9 Apollo Lunar missions and allowing 12 astronauts
to walk on the Moon. Pictured above is the last moon shot,
Apollo 17, awaiting a night launch in December of 1972.
Spot lights play on the rocket and launch pad
while the full Moon looms in the background.
Humans have not walked on the lunar surface since.
Should we
return to the Moon?
APOD: August 30, 1995 - Skylab Over Earth
Explanation:
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a
Saturn V rocket in May 1973.
Skylab was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes
stayed as long as two and a half months. Many scientific tests were
preformed on Skylab, including astronomical observations in
ultraviolet and
X-ray
light. Some of these observations yielded valuable information about Comet
Kohoutek, our Sun
and about the mysterious X-ray background - radiation that comes from
all over the sky. Skylab fell back to earth on 11 July 1979.
APOD: August 29, 1995 - Saturn V: NASA's Largest Rocket
Explanation:
Pictured, a NASA Saturn V rocket blasts off on July 16th, 1969 carrying the
crew of
Apollo 11 to the Moon.
The Saturn V rocket was the largest rocket ever used by NASA, and the only
one able to lift the large masses needed to land astronauts on the moon and
returning them safely. Saturn V rockets launched all of the Apollo
moon missions, and several to Earth orbit as well.