More about Sputnik

On October 4 1957 Sputnik (fellow traveller or satellite in Russian) was the first man-made object or satellite put into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik I circled Earth about every 98 minutes, sending out a bleep bleep signal. Sputnik I weighed only 183 pounds and contained a battery and a radio transmitter, as well as instruments to measure conditions in space such as temperature.

The launch took the Americans by surprise and marked the start of the “space race” between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The Americans had also planned to launch a satellite, Vanguard, but were beaten by the Russians. Before Vanguard could be launched the Russians struck again. On November 3, Sputnik II was launched, carrying a much heavier payload, including a dog named Laika.

On January 31, 1958, the tide changed, when the United States successfully launched Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, named after principal investigator James Van Allen. The Explorer program continued as a successful ongoing series of lightweight, scientifically useful spacecraft. The Sputnik launch also led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

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More about the First Space Walk

For several years the Soviets led the “space race”. On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin famously became the first man in space. Gagarin’s journey, once around the Earth on the Vostok I, lasted only 108 minutes. He travelled at around 28,000 kph at between 181 and 327 kilometres above the ground. A Soviet cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov, was the first person to go outside a craft in space. His extra vehicular activity (EVA) lasted around 12 minutes.

Leonov was filmed by a camera attached to the edge of the airlock and his fellow cosmonaut, Pavel Belyayev, remained inside the craft, Voskhod 2. There were tense moments when Leonov found his spacesuit too rigid to reenter the airlock. Leonov bled air out of his suit, but was barely able to return. Three months after Leonov’s space walk, American Ed White became the first American to walk in space from the Gemini. Leonov was to be the Commander of the first Soviet Moon mission, cancelled when Apollo 11 took the prize in 1969.

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More about the first Moon Landing

After Gagarin’s successful orbit of the Earth in 1961, President John F Kennedy responded by declaring that the Americans would send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. This became a reality on 20 July 1969 with the Apollo 11 mission, when Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon.

"That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". Armstrong was accompanied by fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the lunar module, the Eagle, while the third member of the expedition, Michael Collins, remained on board the Apollo command module, the Columbia, while it orbited the Moon.

After 22 hours on the Moon, the top half of the Eagle carried Armstrong and Aldrin away from the lunar surface, to reunite with Collins less than four hours later on the Columbia. The Eagle carried a cargo of 22 kilograms of Moon rock, which were transferred to the Columbia. It was then cast off, to eventually crash onto the lunar surface.

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More about Voyager

Since Sputnik many space probes have explored our solar system. The most distant human-made object in the cosmos is Voyager I. Both launched by NASA in 1977, the two Voyager probes have explored Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune, along with dozens of their moons. In addition, they have been studying the solar wind, the stream charged particles spewing from the sun at nearly a million miles per hour.

Voyager 1 is now at the outer edge of our solar system, in an area called the heliosheath, the zone where the Sun's influence wanes. This region is the outer layer of the 'bubble' surrounding the sun, and no one knows how big this bubble actually is. Voyager 1 is literally venturing into the great unknown and is approaching interstellar space. Traveling at a speed of about one million miles per day, Voyager 1 could cross into interstellar space within the next 10 years.

Both Voyager spacecrafts carry a greeting to any form of life, should that be encountered. The message is carried by a phonograph record - a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

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More about the Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth once every 97 minutes at an altitude of 600 kilometres. It is the world's first space-based optical telescope, named after American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953). Dr. Hubble confirmed an "expanding" universe, which provided the foundation for the Big Bang theory. It was launched in 1990 and is expected to have an active life of around twenty years. Hubble is powered by solar electricity with back-up rechargeable batteries when the telescope is in Earth’s shadow. It is 13.2 metres long with a diameter of 4.2 metres and weighs over 11,000 kg.

The Hubble is able to observe our solar system and the further reaches of space. However it is unable to transmit images of the Sun or Mercury, which is too close to the Sun. The first image recorded by Hubble was a Star Cluster (NGC 3532) in May 1990. Each day the telescope generates enough data to fill six CD ROMs. In order to take images of distant, faint objects, Hubble must be extremely steady and accurate. Pointing the Hubble Space Telescope and locking onto distant celestial targets is like holding a laser light steady on a coin that is over 400 km away.

Hubble has peered across space and time to study galaxies in an infant universe. The most famous of Hubble's faraway views is the Hubble Deep Field, a tiny speck of sky that revealed a zoo of about 3,000 galaxies, some as old as 10 billion years. The Hubble Deep Field, taken in 1995, has become one of the most studied regions of the sky and has been examined in a wide range of wavelengths, from radio to infrared. Hubble's observations of deep space indicated that the young cosmos was filled with much smaller and more irregularly shaped galaxies than those that astronomers see in our nearby universe. These smaller structures, composed of gas and young stars, may be the building blocks from which the more familiar spiral and elliptical galaxies formed, possibly through processes such as multiple galaxy collisions and mergers.

Gazing across space and time, the orbiting observatory identified the farthest stellar explosion to date, a supernova that erupted 10 billion years ago. By examining the glow from this dying star, a supernova called 1997ff, astronomers collected the first tantalizing observational evidence that gravity began slowing down the universe's expansion after the Big Bang. The finding, made in 2001, reinforces the startling idea that the universe only recently began speeding up, a discovery made in 1998 when the unusually dim light of several distant supernovas suggested that the universe is expanding more quickly than it has in the past. The Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers estimate the age of the universe to 12 to 14 billion years old.

http://hubblesite.org/

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More about the International Space Station

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proposed that the United States, in cooperation with other countries, build a permanently inhabited space station. The U.S. forged a cooperative effort with 14 other countries (Canada, Japan, Brazil, and the European Space Agency - United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden). In 1993 the United States invited Russia to cooperate in the ISS, bringing the number of participating countries to 16. NASA is taking the lead in coordinating the ISS's construction.

The assembly of the ISS in orbit began in 1998. The ISS has more than 100 components and will require 44 spaceflights by at least three space vehicles (space shuttle, Soyuz and Russian Proton rocket) to deliver the components into orbit. One-hundred and sixty spacewalks, totaling 1,920 man-hours, will be required to assemble and maintain the ISS, which is scheduled for completion in 2010 and will have an anticipated life of 10 years at a projected total cost of $35 to $37 billion. When completed, the ISS will be able to house up to seven astronauts.

The ISS orbits the Earth at around 362 to 476 kilometres. The first three-member crew spent nearly 5 months on board the ISS in 2000/2001. Since then 12 two and three-member crews have spent periods up to 7 months aboard the ISS.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
International Space Station images: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/assembly/ndxpage1.html

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