"as ""The Great Dying""). Like the force fields which protect fictional spaceships from damage, Spaceship Earth has a very real magnetic field which prevents cosmic rays and the stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun from harming living beings on Earth. In the narrative words of ""A Beautiful Planet"", the glowing, curtain-like auroras that the astronauts admire in the film ""show that shield in action. Because we have this magical magnetic field protecting us, we have our forests, and oceans, animals, and people. It's why ours is a planet of life."" Our neighboring planet Mars, on the other hand,"
"Voyager 1 Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System, ""Voyager 1"" launched 16 days after its twin, ""Voyager 2"". Having operated for as of , the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of (21.289 billion kilometers; 13.229 billion miles) from the Sun as of June 4, 2018, it is the most distant man-made object from Earth. The probe's objectives included flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. While the"
"Earth observation satellite Earth observation satellites or Earth remote sensing satellites are satellites specifically designed for Earth observation from orbit, similar to spy satellites but intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, map making etc. The first occurrence of satellite remote sensing can be dated to the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1 sent back radio signals, which scientists used to study the ionosphere. NASA launched the first American satellite, Explorer 1, in January 31, 1958. The information sent back from its radiation detector led to"
"first satellite, but later renamed after the popular French comics character Astérix. Due to the relatively high altitude of its orbit, it is not expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere for several centuries. Astérix (satellite) Astérix, the first French satellite, was launched on November 26, 1965 by a Diamant A rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, French Algeria. With ""Astérix"", France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite in orbit after the USSR (""Sputnik 1"", 1957), the United States (""Explorer 1"", 1958), the United Kingdom (""Ariel 1"", 1962), Canada (""Alouette 1"", 1962), and Italy (""San Marco 1"","
"Interplanetary spaceflight Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is travel between planets, usually within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System. Remotely guided space probes have flown by all of the planets of the Solar System from Mercury to Neptune, with the New Horizons probe having flown by the dwarf planet Pluto and the Dawn spacecraft currently orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres. The most distant spacecrafts, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have left the Solar System as of while Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons are"
"launched from Earth. Through these unmanned missions, humans have been able to get close-up photographs of all the planets and, in the case of landers, perform tests of the soils and atmospheres of some. The first artificial object sent into space was the Soviet satellite ""Sputnik 1"", launched in 1957, which successfully orbited Earth until 4 January the following year. The American probe ""Explorer 6"", launched in 1959, was the first satellite to image Earth from space. The first successful probe to fly by another Solar System body was ""Luna 1"", which sped past the Moon in 1959. Originally meant"
"examined the relationship between two types of solar radiation and changes in the Earth's ionosphere. They took advantage of techniques developed in the Skylark programme. Ariel 1, the first satellite from a nation besides the United States or the Soviet Union, was launched aboard an American Thor-Delta rocket from Launch Complex 17A at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, at 18:00:16 GMT on 26 April 1962. Ariel 1 was among several satellites inadvertently damaged or destroyed by the Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test on July 9, 1962, and subsequent radiation belt. It decayed from orbit on 24 April 1976. Ariel"
"to impact with the Moon, it instead missed its target and became the first artificial object to orbit the Sun. ""Mariner 2"" was the first planetary flyby, passing Venus in 1962. The first successful flyby of Mars was made by ""Mariner 4"" in 1965. ""Mariner 10"" first passed Mercury in 1974. The first probe to explore the outer planets was ""Pioneer 10"", which flew by Jupiter in 1973. ""Pioneer 11"" was the first to visit Saturn, in 1979. The ""Voyager"" probes performed a grand tour of the outer planets following their launch in 1977, with both probes passing Jupiter in"
"Vanguard 1 Vanguard 1 (ID: 1958-Beta 2 ) was the fourth artificial Earth orbital satellite to be successfully launched (following Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1). Vanguard 1 was the first satellite to have solar electric power. Although communication with the satellite was lost in 1964, it remains the oldest man-made object still in orbit, together with the upper stage of its launch vehicle. It was designed to test the launch capabilities of a three-stage launch vehicle as a part of Project Vanguard, and the effects of the space environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit."
"Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 ( or ; ""Satellite-1"", or ""PS-1"", Простейший Спутник-1 or ""Prosteyshiy Sputnik-1"", ""Elementary Satellite 1"") was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957, orbiting for three weeks before its batteries died, then silently for two more months before falling back into the atmosphere. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable even by radio amateurs, and the 65° inclination and duration of its orbit made its"
"In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, ""Sputnik."" Scientists at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory took a series of measurements of ""Sputnik""'s doppler shift yielding the satellite's position and velocity. This team continued to monitor ""Sputnik"" and the next satellites into space, ""Sputnik II"" and ""Explorer I"". In March 1958 the idea of working backwards, using known satellite orbits to determine an unknown position on the Earth's surface began to be explored. This led to the ""TRANSIT"" satellite navigation system. The first ""TRANSIT"" satellite was placed in polar orbit in 1960. The system, consisting"
"1963) had as its primary mission to measure solar electromagnetic radiation in the UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray regions. The SOLar RADiation satellite program (SOLRAD) was conceived in the late 1950s to study the Sun's effects on Earth, particularly during periods of heightened solar activity. Solrad 1 is launched on June 22, 1960, aboard a Thor Able from Cape Canaveral at 1:54 a.m. EDT. As the world's first orbiting astronomical observatory, Solrad 1 determined that radio fade-outs were caused by solar X-ray emissions. Hitomi, formerly known as Astro-H, was a Japanese satellite which attempted to re-fly the microcalorimeter that failed on"
"the objects they orbited. The first to use of the term ""satellite"" to describe orbiting bodies was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his pamphlet ""Narratio de Observatis a se quatuor Iouis satellitibus erronibus"" (""Narration About Four Satellites of Jupiter Observed"") in 1610. He derived the term from the Latin word ""satelles"", meaning ""guard"", ""attendant"", or ""companion"", because the ""satellites"" accompanied their primary planet in their journey through the heavens. The term ""satellite"" thus became the normal one for referring to an object orbiting a planet, as it avoided the ambiguity of ""moon"". In 1957, however, the launching of the"
"in 1986 and 1989, respectively. The first spacecraft to leave the solar system was ""Pioneer 10"" in 1983. For a time it was the most distant spacecraft, but it has since been surpassed by both ""Voyager 1"" and ""Voyager 2"". ""Pioneers 10"" and ""11"" and both Voyager probes carry messages from the Earth to extraterrestrial life. Communication can be difficult with deep space travel. For instance, it took about three hours for a radio signal to reach the ""New Horizons"" spacecraft when it was more than halfway to Pluto. Contact with ""Pioneer 10"" was lost in 2003. Both Voyager probes"
"Earth to be orbited by an artificial satellite (""Luna 10""), followed by Mars in 1971 (""Mariner 9""), Venus in 1975 (""Venera 9""), Jupiter in 1995 (""Galileo""), the asteroid 433 Eros in 2000 (""NEAR Shoemaker""), Saturn in 2004 (""Cassini–Huygens""), and Mercury and Vesta in 2011 (""MESSENGER"" and ""Dawn"" respectively). ""Dawn"" is orbiting the asteroid–dwarf planet Ceres as of 2015. The first probe to land on another Solar System body was the Soviet ""Luna 2"" probe, which impacted the Moon in 1959. Since then, increasingly distant planets have been reached, with probes landing on or impacting the surfaces of Venus in 1966"
"Satellite In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earth's Moon. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Since then, about 8,100 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched. According to a 2018 estimate, some 4,900 remain in orbit, of those about 1,900 were operational; while the rest have lived out their useful lives and become space debris. Approximately 500 operational satellites are in low-Earth orbit, 50"
"spacecraft whose design is based upon SSTL's new Geostationary Minisatellite Platform (GMP) satellite bus, intended for geostationary orbit. GIOVE-A is also SSTL's first satellite outside low Earth orbit, operating in medium Earth orbit), and is SSTL's first satellite to use deployable Sun-tracking solar arrays. Previous SSTL satellites use body-mounted solar arrays, which generate less power per unit area as they do not face the Sun directly. It was launched at 05:19 UTC on December 28, 2005 on a Soyuz-FG/Fregat from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It began communicating as planned at 09:01 UTC while circling the Earth at a height"
"comets. They remain a fundamental tool for the exploration of outer space, as well as observation of the Earth. In August 2012, Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to leave the Solar System and enter interstellar space. The absence of air makes outer space an ideal location for astronomy at all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is evidenced by the spectacular pictures sent back by the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing light from more than 13 billion years ago—almost to the time of the Big Bang—to be observed. However, not every location in space is ideal for a telescope."
"beyond. In 1957 the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, ""Sputnik 1"", was launched; in 1961 on 12 April the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yury Gagarin; and many other Soviet and Russian space exploration records ensued, including the first spacewalk performed by Alexey Leonov, the first space exploration rover ""Lunokhod-1"" and the first space station ""Salyut 1"". Nowadays Russia is the largest satellite launcher and the only provider of transport for space tourism services. Famous Russian battle tanks include T-34, the best middle tank design of World War II, and further tanks of T-series, including the most"
"Earth, traveling away from both the Earth and the Sun at a relatively faster speed than any other probe. As of September 12, 2013, ""Voyager 1"" is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from the Sun. On August 25, 2012, ""Voyager 1"" became the first human made object to enter interstellar space. ""Voyager 1"" has not had a functioning plasma sensor since 1980, but a solar flare in 2012 allowed scientists from NASA to measure vibrations of the plasma surrounding the craft. The vibrations allowed scientists to measure the plasma to be much denser than measurements taken in the"
"using satellites as navigation aids. On June 22, 1960, a Thor-Ablestar launched the first Galactic Radiation and Background (GRAB) electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite for the United States Navy. These now-declassified satellites, operated under a cover story of providing solar radiation data, included an electronics package to detect Soviet air defense radar signals. GRAB-1 was thus the world's first successful reconnaissance satellite, preceding the first Corona mission to return film (Discoverer 14 on August 18) by almost two months. On 1961-06-29 the Ablestar stage used to launch Transit 4A became the first object to unintentionally explode in space, creating at least"
"probe, which imaged both 951 Gaspra (in 1991) and 243 Ida (in 1993) on its way to Jupiter. Launched on January 19, 2006, the ""New Horizons"" probe is the first man-made spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt. This unmanned mission flew by Pluto in July 2015. The mission was extended to observe a number of other Kuiper belt objects, including a close flyby of on New Year's Day, 2019. As of 2011, American scientists are concerned that exploration beyond the Asteroid Belt will hampered by a shortage of Plutonium-238. In 1966, the Moon became the first Solar System body beyond"
"camera around and take one last photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of astronomer and author Carl Sagan. In September 1977, NASA launched ""Voyager 1"", a robotic spacecraft on a mission to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. After the encounter with the Jovian system in 1979 and the Saturnian system in 1980, the primary mission was declared complete in November of the same year. ""Voyager 1"" was the first space probe to provide detailed images of the two largest planets and their major moons. The spacecraft, still travelling at ,"
"is the most distant man-made object from Earth and the first one to leave the Solar System. Its mission has been extended and continues to this day, with the aim of investigating the boundaries of the Solar system, including the Kuiper belt, the heliosphere and interstellar space. Operating for as of today (), it receives routine commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. ""Voyager 1"" was expected to work only through the Saturn encounter. When the spacecraft passed the planet in 1980, Sagan proposed the idea of the space probe taking one last picture of Earth. He"
"spacecraft's course could have been altered to include a Pluto encounter by forgoing the Titan flyby, exploration of the moon, which was known to have a substantial atmosphere, took priority. It studied the weather, magnetic fields and rings of the two planets and was the first probe to provide detailed images of their moons. After completing its primary mission with the flyby of Saturn on November 12, 1980, ""Voyager 1"" became the third of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity that will allow them to leave the Solar System. On August 25, 2012, ""Voyager 1"" became the first"
"Astérix (satellite) Astérix, the first French satellite, was launched on November 26, 1965 by a Diamant A rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, French Algeria. With ""Astérix"", France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite in orbit after the USSR (""Sputnik 1"", 1957), the United States (""Explorer 1"", 1958), the United Kingdom (""Ariel 1"", 1962), Canada (""Alouette 1"", 1962), and Italy (""San Marco 1"", 1964), and the third to launch a satellite on its own (the UK, Canada and Italy's satellites were launched on American rockets). The satellite was originally designated A-1, as the French Army's"
"orbit. The USA responded by launching the Vanguard rocket, that was intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a Juno I rocket launched on January 31, 1958. Thus Vanguard I was the second successful U.S. orbital launch. Thus started the space race, that gave the drive to put men on the moon with the USA's Apollo program. Vanguard TV0 Vanguard"
"information please visit AMSAT for North America https://www.amsat.org/ and AMSAT-UK for Europe https://amsat-uk.org/ The first amateur satellite, simply named OSCAR 1, was launched on December 12, 1961, barely four years after the launch of world's first satellite, Sputnik I. The beginning of this project was very humble. The satellite had to be built in a very specific shape and weight, so it could be used in place of one of the weights necessary for balancing the payload in the rocket stage. OSCAR 1 was the first satellite to be ejected as a secondary payload (with Discoverer 36 as the primary)"
"Explorer 1 Explorer 1 was the first satellite of the United States, launched as part of its participation in the International Geophysical Year. The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 and 2, beginning the Cold War Space Race between the two nations. Explorer 1 was launched on January 31, 1958 at 22:48 Eastern Time (February 1, 03:48 UTC) atop the first Juno booster from LC-26 at the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt, returning data until its batteries were exhausted after"
"comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014. First probe to Jupiter. Radio communications were lost with Pioneer 10 on January 23, 2003, because of the loss of electric power for its radio transmitter, with the probe at a distance of 12 billion kilometers (80 AU) from Earth. First probe to fly by Saturn. (Communications were later lost due to power constraints and vast distance.) ""Voyager 1"" is a 733-kilogram probe launched September 5, 1977. It visited Jupiter and Saturn and was the first probe to provide detailed images of the moons of these planets. ""Voyager 1"" is the farthest human-made object from"
"Outer planets The outer planets are those planets in the Solar System beyond the asteroid belt, and hence refers to the gas giants and ice giants, which are in order of their distance from the Sun: The outer planets all have ring systems, although all but Saturn's are faint when viewed from Earth. Another aspect common to the gas giants is their many natural satellites (moons), two of which are larger than the planet Mercury (Jupiter's Ganymede and Saturn's Titan). That pair and Io, Callisto, Europa, and Triton, are larger than Pluto and Eris. This region of space is also"
"Scout used solid rocket motors. Thus, electronic equipment that was smaller than before and rugged enough to withstand the increased vibration of launch had to be produced. Meeting the new demands was more difficult than expected, but it was accomplished. The first prototype operational satellite (Transit 5A-1) was launched into a polar orbit by a Scout rocket on 18 December 1962. The satellite verified a new technique for deploying the solar panels and for separating from the rocket, but otherwise it was not successful because of trouble with the power system. Transit 5A-2, launched on 5 April 1963, failed to"
"to communicate long distances in remote areas with the use of satellite phones. Airlines use them to provide internet service on their flights. They are also starting to be used to deliver internet to areas that are unable to get internet in any other way due to their location. The number of communication satellites has since expanded to about 2,000 in orbit that are able to provide continuous communication around the globe. The first weather satellite named TIROS I (Television and InfraRed Observation Satellite) was launched on April 1, 1960. The satellite used television cameras to take pictures of clouds"