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The Dawn of the Space Age: What is NASA and why was it set up?

         NASA stands for the National  Aeronautics Space Administration. It is an enterprise run by the U.S. government. NASA was setup  after the Soviet Union sent up Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite,  into space on October 4, 1957.  Those were the days of  the Cold War when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were competing in many areas including what became known as the SPACE RACE. In his speech, which can be viewed on the web site below, President Kennedy promised to to send a human to the moon before the decade was out. You can view that speech here:  http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/05/25/kennedy.moon/speech.excerpts.pdf

What is Aeronautics?

Aeronautics is the study or science of space and aircraft. NASA is funded by the government to research and provide information about the outer space.

What missions have NASA recently performed in space?

NASA has recently performed the following missions: Stardust, New Horizons, Expedition 12, and the MRO mission. The Stardust mission was to get a piece of the Comet Wild 2 to Earth. The New Horizon mission is to get to Pluto and study it and it's moon Charon. The Expedition 12 mission was a mission to go to the International Space Station and perform maintenance missions. The MRO mission is to find out if water ever existed on other planets.

What is a space/lunar probe?

A space/lunar probe is basically a satellite used for special missions. It contains a mission to map a planet for example.

How many probes are there currently?

Currently there are ten space probes and they do the following things:

Mariner- missions to fly near planets and gather information

Pioneer 10 and 11- a mission to flyby Jupiter (Pioneer 10 and 11) and Saturn

(Pioneer 11) to collect information, the mission is complete yet, Pioneer 10 and 11 are now headed into the rest of our Solar System

 

Viking 1 and 2- a mission to gather information about Mars

 

Pioneer Venus 1 and 2- a mission to probe Venus and mapped out the planets surface, and imaged its clouds

 

Voyager 1 and 2- a mission to provide a grand tour of the solar system it was launched in 1977

 

Magellan- a planetary probe to Venus which carefully imaged Venus's surface during 1989-1994

 

Galileo- a mission to map Jupiter, the moon and many asteroids

 

Cassini-Huygens- a mission to Saturn, where the satellite will land a probe on Titan and also gather information about Saturn

 

Explorer- many different missions conducted in 1958-1980

 

What are some lunar probes and their missions?

Ranger- a set of missions to capture images of the moon where the probe would take pictures before crashing into the moon

Surveyor- a series of unmanned missions to take pictures to see if the moon was safe for a manned landing

Lunar Orbiter- the purpose of these missions was to map out the whole moon before the Apollo missions

         Clementine- the object of this mission was to test sensors and space craft equipment and see how they will react to space conditions and also to study the 1620 Geographos

            Galileo- a mapping mission to Jupiter and also took pictures of the Moon and asteroids

What communication satellites does NASA have?

         A communication satellite is a satellite which streams data into your computer,

cell phone, telephone and other devices. It has made weather forecasts more accurate and saved millions of people by reporting where and when a hurricane, blizzard or tornado will strike. Here are some types of communication satellites:

  Echo Satellites- the echo satellite resembled a metal balloon however since it was a passive satellite, not many commercial companies used the echo satellite because the reflected signal strength was very weak

   Telstar I and II- AT&T made these satellites for chain of 50 satellites that AT&T was looking to put into orbit but it was stopped after President Kennedy gave the communication satellite monopoly to Comsat

    Relay- a satellite which received a radio transmission from the ground and then re-transmitted it to another part of the Earth

      ATS-1-6- a satellite program which has launched six satellites so far and handles weather and communication, the picture you see below was taken by one of those satellites

   CTS- it is the Communication Technology Satellite also known as Hermes, it carries a 200 Watt amplifier and performs at 14 Up/12 Down GHz

What are some Earth Science Satellites and their missions?

Earth Science Satellites were used to map and study the Earth.

Landsat- a satellite that was used to take pictures of Earth's geographical terrain

TOPEX/ POSEIDON- a satellite used to measure the ocean surface topography (terrain), it was very precise and measured up to several millimeters every 10 days

Earth Observing System (EOS)- a group of satellites used for the long term study of the Earth's oceans, terrain, and atmosphere, this information will help us better understand how the Earth functions as a whole

What are some weather satellites and tasks/missions that they have performed?

NIMBUS- the NIMBUS satellite were used to find ozone holes, measure the temperature of sea water/ice and provide local cloud information

TIROS- the Television Infrared Observation Satellite was a series of missions to try and create a global weather satellite system

ESSA- the Environmental Science Services Administration satellite program was an added on mission after the TIROS program, the ESSA program was to provide pictures of clouds to the American National Meteorological Center

Sources:

    http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/nasa_gen/index.html

    http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/planets.html

    http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/luneprob.html

    http://roland.lerc.nasa.gov/~dglover/sat/satcom1.html

    http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPEX/Poseidon

    http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    http://www.earth.nasa.gov/history/index10.html

    http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/QuickLooks/tirosQL.html

Images From:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/images/20040114-3_nasa1-515h.html

    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/history/hires/1973/venus_mariner10.jpg

    http://www.pianeta-marte.it/satelliti_artificiali/viking/bigv.jpg

    http://home.cwru.edu/~sjr16/media/missions/pioneer_1011.jpg

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Pioneer-0-1-2.gif/180px-Pioneer-0-1-2.gif

    http://www.spacetoday.org/images/SolSys/TheVoyagers/VoyagerReverse.jpg

    http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/spacecraft/magellan_orbit.jpg

    http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/galileo/GalileoFS.gif

    http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/img/cassini-saturn-approach.jpg

    http://roland.lerc.nasa.gov/~dglover/sat/satcom1.html

    http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/nozomi/images/nozomi.jpg

    http://www.spacetoday.org/images/Rockets/DeltaRockets/Delta4rocketBoeingArtist.jpg

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TOPEX.jpg

    http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA03028_modest.jpg

    http://space.skyrocket.de/img_sat/tiros-1__9.jpg

    http://www.stguardian.to/mixed/probes/cage11nimbusmeteorological.jpg

    http://history.nasa.gov/SP-168/p203a.jpg

    http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Images/ranger/ranger7.gif

    http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/spacecraft/surveyor_beach.jpg

    http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/spacecraft/lunar_orbiter.jpg

    http://www.interfacecontrol.com/briefs/gifs/clemint.gif

    http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/images/galileo_satellite_09.jpg

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