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115-475: Smith is a spaceship pilot and smuggler who lives in an undisclosed future time when humanity has colonized the Solar System . The stories are set in a milieu common to science fiction stories of the pulp era. All of the planets of the system are able to support life and have their own civilizations. Many of the intelligent races living on the planets have comparatively primitive cultures. The relationship of

230-516: A raygun at his side like an old west gunfighter . His ship, the Maid , is small and unspectacular but surprisingly fast and agile. His closest ally is the equally amoral Venusian, Yarol. His stories often involve ancient alien beings who have been worshipped as gods. This theme is similar to the tales of H. P. Lovecraft though, unlike Lovecraft's tales, Moore provides a hero who always manages to win out over hopeless odds. The classic Northwest Smith story

345-417: A spacecraft on a LVM 3 rocket and return them safely for a water landing at a predefined landing zone. On 15 August 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi , declared India will independently send humans into space before the 75th anniversary of independence in 2022. In 2019, ISRO revealed plans for a space station by 2030, followed by a crewed lunar mission. The program envisages the development of

460-588: A 15.2 metres (50 ft) CanadaArm1 , an upgraded version of which is used on the International Space Station . The heat shield (or Thermal Protection System ) of the orbiter, used to protect it from extreme levels of heat during atmospheric reentry and the cold of space, was made up of different materials depending on weight and how much heating a particular area on the shuttle would receive during reentry, which ranged from over 2,900 °F (1,600 °C) to under 700 °F (370 °C). The orbiter

575-402: A Space Task Group to recommend follow-on human spaceflight programs after Apollo. The group proposed an ambitious Space Transportation System based on a reusable Space Shuttle , which consisted of a winged, internally fueled orbiter stage burning liquid hydrogen, launched with a similar, but larger kerosene -fueled booster stage, each equipped with airbreathing jet engines for powered return to

690-549: A blunt shape, do not usually contain much more fuel than needed, and they do not possess wings unlike spaceplanes . They are the simplest form of recoverable spacecraft, and so the most commonly used. The first such capsule was the Vostok capsule built by the Soviet Union, that carried the first person in space, Yuri Gagarin . Other examples include the Soyuz and Orion capsules, built by

805-568: A fully-autonomous orbital vehicle capable of carrying 2 or 3 crew members to an about 300 km (190 mi) low Earth orbit and bringing them safely back home. Since 2008, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has developed the H-II Transfer Vehicle cargo-spacecraft-based crewed spacecraft and Kibō Japanese Experiment Module –based small space laboratory. NASA is developing a plan to land humans on Mars by

920-659: A human into orbit independently. The goal of the second phase of CMS was to make technology breakthroughs in extravehicular activities (EVA, or spacewalk), space rendezvous , and docking to support short-term human activities in space. On 25 September 2008 during the flight of Shenzhou 7 , Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming completed China's first EVA. In 2011, China launched the Tiangong 1 target spacecraft and Shenzhou 8 uncrewed spacecraft. The two spacecraft completed China's first automatic rendezvous and docking on 3 November 2011. About 9 months later, Tiangong 1 completed

1035-541: A liftoff thrust of 2,800,000 pounds-force (12 MN), which soon increased to 3,300,000 pounds-force (15 MN) per booster, and were fueled by a combination of PBAN and APCP , the Space Shuttle Orbiter , with 3 RS-25 engines that used a liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen propellant combination, and the bright orange throwaway Space Shuttle external tank from which the RS-25 engines sourced their fuel. The orbiter

1150-511: A planetary body are artificial satellites . To date, only a handful of interstellar probes , such as Pioneer 10 and 11 , Voyager 1 and 2 , and New Horizons , are on trajectories that leave the Solar System . Orbital spacecraft may be recoverable or not. Most are not. Recoverable spacecraft may be subdivided by a method of reentry to Earth into non-winged space capsules and winged spaceplanes . Recoverable spacecraft may be reusable (can be launched again or several times, like

1265-417: A rendezvous with Intelsat-901 on 25 February 2020. It will remain with the satellite until 2025 before the satellite is moved to a final graveyard orbit and the vehicle does a rendezvous with another satellite. The other one launched on an Ariane 5 rocket on 15 August 2020. A spacecraft astrionics system comprises different subsystems, depending on the mission profile. Spacecraft subsystems are mounted in

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1380-566: A runway at the Kennedy Space Center launch site. Other components of the system included a permanent, modular space station; reusable space tug ; and nuclear interplanetary ferry, leading to a human expedition to Mars as early as 1986 or as late as 2000, depending on the level of funding allocated. However, Nixon knew the American political climate would not support congressional funding for such an ambition, and killed proposals for all but

1495-662: A spacecraft of their own, the CST-100 , commonly referred to as Starliner , but a crewed flight is yet to occur. China developed, but did not fly Shuguang , and is currently using Shenzhou (its first crewed mission was in 2003). Except for the Space Shuttle and the Buran spaceplane of the Soviet Union, the latter of which only ever had one uncrewed test flight, all of the recoverable crewed orbital spacecraft were space capsules . The International Space Station , crewed since November 2000,

1610-468: A third, successful attempt at crewed spaceflight. To achieve independent human spaceflight capability, China developed the Shenzhou spacecraft and Long March 2F rocket dedicated to human spaceflight in the next few years, along with critical infrastructures like a new launch site and flight control center being built. The first uncrewed spacecraft, Shenzhou 1 , was launched on 20 November 1999 and recovered

1725-420: A variety of purposes, including communications , Earth observation , meteorology , navigation , space colonization , planetary exploration , and transportation of humans and cargo . All spacecraft except single-stage-to-orbit vehicles cannot get into space on their own, and require a launch vehicle (carrier rocket). On a sub-orbital spaceflight , a space vehicle enters space and then returns to

1840-514: Is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft , often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously , without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts (American or other), cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers . The first human in space

1955-504: Is "Shambleau", in which Moore plays with themes of sexuality and addiction in Smith's encounter with a strange female alien. The story "Quest of the Starstone" is also worth noting because it connects Smith with Moore's other most famous character, Jirel of Joiry . Moore originally created Smith as a western character and kept the name when she switched to science fiction. She reportedly liked

2070-645: Is a joint venture between Russia, the United States, Canada and several other countries. Uncrewed spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input; they may be remote controlled , remote guided or even autonomous , meaning they have a pre-programmed list of operations, which they will execute unless otherwise instructed. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost and lower risk factors. In addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus or

2185-443: Is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder ; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth . Communications satellites are used for television , telephone , radio , internet , and military applications. Many communications satellites are in geostationary orbit 22,300 miles (35,900 km) above

2300-443: Is similar to the gap between the end of Apollo in 1975 and the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981, and is referred to by a presidential Blue Ribbon Committee as the U.S. human spaceflight gap. Since the early 2000s, a variety of private spaceflight ventures have been undertaken. As of November 2024, SpaceX and Boeing have launched humans to orbit, while Blue Origin has launched 8 crewed flights, six of which crossed

2415-485: Is sometimes criticized as imperialist and lacking. In addition to the lack of international inclusion, the inclusion of women and people of color has also been lacking. To make spaceflight more inclusive, organizations such as the Justspace Alliance and IAU -featured Inclusive Astronomy have been formed in recent years. The first woman to ever enter space was Valentina Tereshkova . She flew in 1963, but it

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2530-519: Is the height required by the international organization Fédération Aéronautique Internationale to count as a spaceflight. This altitude is called the Kármán line . In particular, in the 1940s there were several test launches of the V-2 rocket , some of which reached altitudes well over 100 km. As of 2016, only three nations have flown crewed spacecraft: USSR/Russia, USA, and China. The first crewed spacecraft

2645-608: Is to be replaced by expendable rockets such as the Space Launch System and ULA 's Vulcan rocket, as well as the commercial launch vehicles. Scaled Composites ' SpaceShipOne was a reusable suborbital spaceplane that carried pilots Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie on consecutive flights in 2004 to win the Ansari X Prize . The Spaceship Company built a successor SpaceShipTwo . A fleet of SpaceShipTwos operated by Virgin Galactic

2760-688: The Kibō Japanese Experiment Module and H-II Transfer Vehicle cargo spacecraft. As an alternative to HOPE-X, NASDA in 2001 proposed the Fuji crew capsule for independent or ISS flights, but the project did not proceed to the contracting stage. From 1993 to 1997, the Japanese Rocket Society , Kawasaki Heavy Industries , and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries worked on the proposed Kankoh-maru vertical-takeoff-and-landing single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch system. In 2005, this system

2875-481: The Star Wars character Han Solo ; both are violent, gun-wielding, rogue smugglers with hearts of gold who travel among planets that are stand-ins for existing Earth cultures. The Northwest Smith stories include the following: Northwest Smith stories appear in the following collections: Spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed to fly and operate in outer space . Spacecraft are used for

2990-564: The Constellation program included plans for retiring the Space Shuttle program and replacing it with the capability for spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit. In the 2011 United States federal budget , the Obama administration canceled Constellation for being over budget and behind schedule, while not innovating and investing in critical new technologies. As part of the Artemis program , NASA is developing

3105-541: The Deep Space Network . A space telescope or space observatory is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. Space telescopes avoid the filtering and distortion of electromagnetic radiation which they observe, and avoid light pollution which ground-based observatories encounter. They are divided into two types: satellites which map the entire sky ( astronomical survey ), and satellites which focus on selected astronomical objects or parts of

3220-524: The Indian Human Spaceflight Program , India was planning to send humans into space on its orbital vehicle Gaganyaan before August 2022, but it has been delayed to 2024, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) began work on this project in 2006. The initial objective is to carry a crew of two or three to low Earth orbit (LEO) for a 3-to-7-day flight in

3335-748: The International Space Station (ISS). On 15 October 2003, the first Chinese taikonaut, Yang Liwei , went to space as part of Shenzhou 5 , the first Chinese human spaceflight. As of March 2024, humans have not traveled beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 lunar mission in December 1972. Currently, the United States, Russia, and China are the only countries with public or commercial human spaceflight-capable programs . Non-governmental spaceflight companies have been working to develop human space programs of their own, e.g. for space tourism or commercial in-space research . The first private human spaceflight launch

3450-409: The International Space Station and Tiangong space station. Some spacecrafts can operate as both a crewed and uncrewed spacecraft. For example, the Buran spaceplane could operate autonomously but also had manual controls, though it never flew with crew onboard. Other dual crewed/uncrewed spacecrafts include: SpaceX Dragon 2 , Dream Chaser , and Tianzhou . A communications satellite

3565-440: The International Space Station : Russian Progress , American SpaceX Dragon 2 and Cygnus . Chinese Tianzhou is used to supply Tiangong space station . Space probes are robotic spacecraft that are sent to explore deep space, or astronomical bodies other than Earth. They are distinguished from landers by the fact that they work in open space, not on planetary surfaces or in planetary atmospheres. Being robotic eliminates

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3680-647: The Kármán line , the 100 kilometres (62 mi) altitude used by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) to denote the edge of space. In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s. That same year, the US began the Apollo program of launching three-man capsules atop

3795-474: The Kármán line . Virgin Galactic has launched crew to a height above 80 km (50 mi) on a suborbital trajectory. Several other companies, including Sierra Nevada and Copenhagen Suborbitals , have developed crewed spacecraft. SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic plan to fly commercial passengers in the emerging space tourism market. SpaceX has developed Crew Dragon flying on Falcon 9 . It first launched astronauts to orbit and to

3910-451: The Lynx single-passenger spaceplane since the 2000s, but development was halted in 2017. Participation and representation of humanity in space has been an issue ever since the first phase of space exploration. Some rights of non-spacefaring countries have been secured through international space law , declaring space the " province of all mankind ", though the sharing of space by all humanity

4025-630: The Orion spacecraft to be launched by the Space Launch System . Under the Commercial Crew Development plan, NASA relies on transportation services provided by the private sector to reach low Earth orbit, such as SpaceX Dragon 2 , the Boeing Starliner or Sierra Nevada Corporation 's Dream Chaser . The period between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the first launch into space of SpaceShipTwo Flight VP-03 on 13 December 2018

4140-572: The Saturn family of launch vehicles . In 1962, the US began Project Gemini , which flew 10 missions with two-man crews launched by Titan II rockets in 1965 and 1966. Gemini's objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used during the Moon mission. Meanwhile, the USSR remained silent about their intentions to send humans to the Moon and proceeded to stretch

4255-556: The Shuguang spacecraft. Nineteen PLAAF pilots were selected for this goal in March 1971. The Shuguang-1 spacecraft, to be launched with the CZ-2A rocket, was designed to carry a crew of two. The program was officially canceled on 13 May 1972 for economic reasons. In 1992, under China Manned Space Program (CMS), also known as "Project 921", authorization and funding was given for the first phase of

4370-820: The SpaceX Dragon and the Space Shuttle orbiters ) or expendable (like the Soyuz ). In recent years, more space agencies are tending towards reusable spacecraft. Humanity has achieved space flight, but only a few nations have the technology for orbital launches : Russia ( Roscosmos ), the United States ( NASA ), the member states of the European Space Agency , Japan ( JAXA ), China ( CNSA ), India ( ISRO ), Taiwan ( TSA ), Israel ( ISA ), Iran ( ISA ), and North Korea ( NADA ). In addition, several private companies have developed or are developing

4485-450: The Tianhe core module , was launched into orbit by China's most powerful rocket Long March 5B on 29 April 2021. It was later visited by multiple cargo and crewed spacecraft and demonstrated China's capability of sustaining Chinese astronauts' long-term stay in space. According to CMS announcement, all missions of Tiangong Space Station are scheduled to be carried out by the end of 2022. Once

4600-802: The Voskhod , Soyuz , flown uncrewed as Zond/L1 , L3 , TKS , and the Salyut and Mir crewed space stations . Other American crewed spacecraft include the Gemini spacecraft , the Apollo spacecraft including the Apollo Lunar Module , the Skylab space station, the Space Shuttle with undetached European Spacelab and private US Spacehab space stations-modules, and the SpaceX Crew Dragon configuration of their Dragon 2 . US company Boeing also developed and flown

4715-612: The dissolution of the USSR , prevented any further flights of Buran. The Space Shuttle was subsequently modified to allow for autonomous re-entry in case of necessity. Per the Vision for Space Exploration , the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011 mainly due to its old age and high cost of program reaching over a billion dollars per flight. The Shuttle's human transport role is to be replaced by SpaceX 's SpaceX Dragon 2 and Boeing 's CST-100 Starliner . Dragon 2's first crewed flight occurred on May 30, 2020. The Shuttle's heavy cargo transport role

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4830-528: The equator , so that the satellite appears stationary at the same point in the sky; therefore the satellite dish antennas of ground stations can be aimed permanently at that spot and do not have to move to track the satellite. Others form satellite constellations in low Earth orbit , where antennas on the ground have to follow the position of the satellites and switch between satellites frequently. The high frequency radio waves used for telecommunications links travel by line of sight and so are obstructed by

4945-464: The satellite bus and may include attitude determination and control (variously called ADAC, ADC, or ACS), guidance, navigation and control (GNC or GN&C), communications (comms), command and data handling (CDH or C&DH), power (EPS), thermal control (TCS), propulsion, and structures. Attached to the bus are typically payloads . Human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight )

5060-651: The test flight phase of their development process. One large spaceliner concept currently in early development is the SpaceX Starship , which, in addition to replacing the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles in the legacy Earth-orbit market after 2020, has been proposed by SpaceX for long-distance commercial travel on Earth, flying 100+ people suborbitally between two points in under one hour, also known as "Earth-to-Earth". Small spaceplane or small capsule suborbital spacecraft have been under development for

5175-414: The "planetary primitives" to the earth colonists is analogous to the situation of Native Americans , Africans and other indigenous people facing colonialism . Exceptions to this rule are the planets Mars and Venus , which Moore depicts as having ancient and decadent cultures (which might stand for China and other ancient Asian cultures, as they seemed to Westerners at the time). This general milieu

5290-682: The 1978 flight of Vladimir Remek. As of 2010 , citizens from 38 nations (including space tourists ) have flown in space aboard Soviet, American, Russian, and Chinese spacecraft. Human spaceflight programs have been conducted by the Soviet Union–Russian Federation, the United States, Mainland China , and by American private spaceflight companies. The following space vehicles and spaceports are currently used for launching human spaceflights: The following space stations are currently maintained in Earth orbit for human occupation: Most of

5405-548: The 2030s. The first step has begun with Artemis I in 2022, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon and returning it to Earth after a 25-day mission. SpaceX is developing Starship , a fully reusable two-stage system, with near-Earth and cislunar applications and an ultimate goal of landing on Mars. The upper stage of the Starship system, also called Starship, has had 9 atmospheric test flights as of September 2021. The first test flight of

5520-840: The American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory , OAO-2 launched in 1968, and the Soviet Orion 1 ultraviolet telescope aboard space station Salyut 1 in 1971. Space telescopes avoid the filtering and distortion ( scintillation ) of electromagnetic radiation which they observe, and avoid light pollution which ground-based observatories encounter. The best-known examples are Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope . Cargo spacecraft are designed to carry cargo , possibly to support space stations ' operation by transporting food, propellant and other supplies. Automated cargo spacecraft have been used since 1978 and have serviced Salyut 6 , Salyut 7 , Mir ,

5635-471: The CEO of SpaceX, estimated in a tweet that 8 launches would be needed to completely refuel a Starship in low Earth orbit , extrapolating this from Starship's payload to orbit and how much fuel a fully fueled Starship contains. To land on bodies without an atmosphere, such as the Moon, Starship will fire its engines and thrusters to slow down. The Mission Extension Vehicle is a robotic spacecraft designed to prolong

5750-756: The ISS in May 2020 as part of the Demo-2 mission. Developed as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, the capsule is also available for flights with other customers. A first tourist mission, Inspiration4 , launched in September 2021. Boeing developed the Starliner capsule as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, which is launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle. Starliner made an uncrewed flight in December 2019. A second uncrewed flight attempt

5865-421: The Moon, Mars, and potentially beyond. It is intended to enable long duration interplanetary flights for a crew of up to 100 people. It will also be capable of point-to-point transport on Earth, enabling travel to anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Furthermore, the spacecraft will be used to refuel other Starship vehicles to allow them to reach higher orbits to and other space destinations. Elon Musk ,

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5980-411: The Moon, and sent Frank Borman , James Lovell , and William Anders into 10 orbits around the Moon in Apollo 8 in December 1968. In 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedy's goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on 21 July and returning them safely on 24 July, along with Command Module pilot Michael Collins . Through 1972, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on

6095-422: The Moon, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The crew of Apollo 13 — Jim Lovell , Jack Swigert , and Fred Haise —survived an in-flight spacecraft failure, they flew by the Moon without landing, and returned safely to Earth. During this time, the USSR secretly pursued crewed lunar orbiting and landing programs . They successfully developed the three-person Soyuz spacecraft for use in

6210-642: The Russian Federal Space Agency, which became known as the Roscosmos State Corporation . The Shuttle-Mir Program included American Space Shuttles visiting the Mir space station, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for long-duration expeditions aboard Mir . In 1993, President Bill Clinton secured Russia's cooperation in converting

6325-406: The Shuttle, possibly to be followed by the space station. Plans for the Shuttle were scaled back to reduce development risk, cost, and time, replacing the piloted fly-back booster with two reusable solid rocket boosters , and the smaller orbiter would use an expendable external propellant tank to feed its hydrogen-fueled main engines . The orbiter would have to make unpowered landings. In 1973,

6440-494: The Solar System , these are Voyager 1 , Voyager 2 , Pioneer 10 , Pioneer 11 , and New Horizons . The identical Voyager probes , weighing 721.9 kilograms (1,592 lb), were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a rare alignment of Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus and Neptune that would allow a spacecraft to visit all four planets in one mission, and get to each destination faster by using gravity assist . In fact,

6555-508: The Soviet Union and NASA , respectively. Spaceplanes are spacecraft that are built in the shape of, and function as, airplanes . The first example of such was the North American X-15 spaceplane, which conducted two crewed flights which reached an altitude of over 100 kilometres (62 mi) in the 1960s. This first reusable spacecraft was air-launched on a suborbital trajectory on July 19, 1963. The first reusable orbital spaceplane

6670-544: The Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age . Apart from its value as a technological first, Sputnik 1 also helped to identify the upper atmospheric layer 's density, by measuring the satellite's orbital changes. It also provided data on radio -signal distribution in the ionosphere . Pressurized nitrogen in the satellite's false body provided the first opportunity for meteoroid detection. Sputnik 1

6785-514: The Sun as of August 2023. NASA provides real time data of their distances and data from the probe’s cosmic ray detectors. Because of the probe’s declining power output and degradation of the RTGs over time, NASA has had to shut down certain instruments to conserve power. The probes may still have some scientific instruments on until the mid-2020s or perhaps the 2030s. After 2036, they will both be out of range of

6900-589: The US launched the Skylab sortie space station and inhabited it for 171 days with three crews ferried aboard an Apollo spacecraft. During that time, President Richard Nixon and Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev were negotiating an easing of Cold War tensions known as détente . During the détente, they negotiated the Apollo–Soyuz program, in which an Apollo spacecraft carrying a special docking adapter module would rendezvous and dock with Soyuz 19 in 1975. The American and Soviet crews shook hands in space, but

7015-547: The US's reusable Space Shuttle orbiter , which they called Buran -class orbiter or simply Buran , which was designed to be launched into orbit by the expendable Energia rocket, and was capable of robotic orbital flight and landing. Unlike the Space Shuttle, Buran had no main rocket engines, but like the Space Shuttle orbiter, it used smaller rocket engines to perform its final orbital insertion. A single uncrewed orbital test flight took place in November 1988. A second test flight

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7130-487: The US. China was the third nation in the world, after the USSR and US, to send humans into space. During the Space Race between the two superpowers, which culminated with Apollo 11 landing humans on the Moon, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai decided on 14 July 1967 that China should not be left behind, and initiated their own crewed space program: the top-secret Project 714, which aimed to put two people into space by 1973 with

7245-416: The absurdity of a character named "Northwest" in space, where compass points are meaningless. Moore traced the origin of the character's name to the typing work which she was doing for a living while writing Shambleau and which included a letter addressed to a "Mr. N.W.Smith." Moore admitted that the name of Smith's Venusian buddy, Yarol, was simply a permutation of the name of her favorite typewriter. In

7360-511: The back of a Boeing 747 SCA and gliding to deadstick landings at Edwards AFB, California . The first Space Shuttle to fly into space was Columbia , followed by Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour . Endeavour was built to replace Challenger when it was lost in January 1986. Columbia broke up during reentry in February 2003. The first autonomous reusable spaceplane

7475-699: The construction is completed, Tiangong will enter the application and development phase, which is poised to last for no less than 10 years. The European Space Agency began development of the Hermes shuttle spaceplane in 1987, to be launched on the Ariane 5 expendable launch vehicle. It was intended to dock with the European Columbus space station . The projects were canceled in 1992 when it became clear that neither cost nor performance goals could be achieved. No Hermes shuttles were ever built. The Columbus space station

7590-453: The construction of which took place from 1986 to 1996. Mir orbited at an altitude of 354 kilometers (191 nautical miles), at an orbital inclination of 51.6°. It was occupied for 4,592 days and made a controlled reentry in 2001. The Space Shuttle started flying in 1981, but the US Congress failed to approve sufficient funds to make Space Station Freedom a reality. A fleet of four shuttles

7705-462: The curve of the Earth. The purpose of communications satellites is to relay the signal around the curve of the Earth allowing communication between widely separated geographical points. Communications satellites use a wide range of radio and microwave frequencies . To avoid signal interference, international organizations have regulations for which frequency ranges or "bands" certain organizations are allowed to use. This allocation of bands minimizes

7820-431: The decades, a number of spacecraft have been proposed for spaceliner passenger travel. Somewhat analogous to travel by airliner after the middle of the 20th century, these vehicles are proposed to transport large numbers of passengers to destinations in space, or on Earth via suborbital spaceflights . To date, none of these concepts have been built, although a few vehicles that carry fewer than 10 persons are currently in

7935-404: The delivery of nuclear weapons , producing rockets large enough to be adapted to carry the first artificial satellites into low Earth orbit . After the first satellites were launched in 1957 and 1958 by the Soviet Union, the US began work on Project Mercury , with the aim of launching men into orbit. The USSR was secretly pursuing the Vostok program to accomplish the same thing, and launched

8050-480: The different orbiters had differing weights and thus payloads, with Columbia being the heaviest orbiter, Challenger being lighter than Columbia but still heavier than the other three. The orbiter structure was mostly composed of aluminium alloy. The orbiter had seven seats for crew members, though on STS-61-A the launch took place with 8 crew onboard. The orbiters had 4.6 metres (15 ft) wide by 18 metres (59 ft) long payload bays and also were equipped with

8165-498: The first American in orbit, aboard Friendship 7 on a Mercury-Atlas rocket . The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules , including the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova , aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. Through 1963, the US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flights and four into orbit. The US also made two North American X-15 flights ( 90 and 91 , piloted by Joseph A. Walker ), that exceeded

8280-430: The first human into space, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin . On 12 April 1961, Gagarin was launched aboard Vostok 1 on a Vostok 3KA rocket and completed a single orbit. On 5 May 1961, the US launched its first astronaut , Alan Shepard , on a suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7 on a Mercury-Redstone rocket . Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecraft's attitude . On 20 February 1962, John Glenn became

8395-429: The first manual rendezvous and docking with Shenzhou 9 , which carried China's first female astronaut Liu Yang . In September 2016, Tiangong 2 was launched into orbit. It was a space laboratory with more advanced functions and equipment than Tiangong 1 . A month later, Shenzhou 11 was launched and docked with Tiangong 2 . Two astronauts entered Tiangong 2 and were stationed for about 30 days, verifying

8510-464: The first spacewalk, but overcame the early Soviet lead by performing several spacewalks, solving the problem of astronaut fatigue caused by compensating for the lack of gravity, demonstrating the ability of humans to endure two weeks in space, and performing the first space rendezvous and docking of spacecraft. The US succeeded in developing the Saturn V rocket necessary to send the Apollo spacecraft to

8625-584: The first woman to enter space through the United States program.Since then, eleven other countries have allowed women astronauts. The first all-female spacewalk occurred in 2018, by Christina Koch and Jessica Meir . These two women had both participated in separate spacewalks with NASA. The first mission to the Moon with a woman aboard is planned for 2024. Despite these developments, women are still underrepresented among astronauts and especially cosmonauts. More than 600 people have flown in space but only 75 have been women. Issues that block potential applicants from

8740-410: The general spacecraft categories. This is a list of these spacecraft. Starship is a spacecraft and second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX . Stacked atop its booster, Super Heavy , it composes the identically named Starship super heavy-lift space vehicle . The spacecraft is designed to transport both crew and cargo to a variety of destinations, including Earth orbit,

8855-466: The history of both the United States and Canada, the term "Northwest" recurs in various contexts, greatly variant with time and place but all carrying associations of wild frontier areas, exploration and adventure ( Northwest Territory in early US history, North-Western Territory / Northwest Territories in Canada, Northwest Passage , North-West Rebellion and more). Northwest Smith is sometimes compared to

8970-426: The life on another spacecraft. It works by docking to its target spacecraft, then correcting its orientation or orbit. This also allows it to rescue a satellite which is in the wrong orbit by using its own fuel to move its target to the correct orbit. The project is currently managed by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. As of 2023, 2 have been launched. The first launched on a Proton rocket on 9 October 2019, and did

9085-485: The limits of their single-pilot Vostok capsule by adapting it to a two or three-person Voskhod capsule to compete with Gemini. They were able to launch two orbital flights in 1964 and 1965 and achieved the first spacewalk , performed by Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 , on 8 March 1965. However, the Voskhod did not have Gemini's capability to maneuver in orbit, and the program was terminated. The US Gemini flights did not achieve

9200-528: The lunar programs, but failed to develop the N1 rocket necessary for a human landing, and discontinued their lunar programs in 1974. Upon losing the Moon race they concentrated on the development of space stations , using the Soyuz as a ferry to take cosmonauts to and from the stations. They started with a series of Salyut sortie stations from 1971 to 1986. In 1969, Nixon appointed his vice president, Spiro Agnew , to head

9315-573: The need for expensive, heavy life support systems (the Apollo crewed Moon landings required the use of the Saturn V rocket that cost over a billion dollars per launch, adjusted for inflation) and so allows for lighter, less expensive rockets. Space probes have visited every planet in the Solar System and Pluto , and the Parker Solar Probe has an orbit that, at its closest point, is in the Sun's chromosphere . There are five space probes that are escaping

9430-407: The next day, marking the first step of the realization of China's human spaceflight capability. Three more uncrewed missions were conducted in the next few years in order to verify the key technologies. On 15 October 2003 Shenzhou 5 , China's first crewed spaceflight mission, put Yang Liwei in orbit for 21 hours and returned safely back to Inner Mongolia , making China the third nation to launch

9545-520: The past decade or so; as of 2017 , at least one of each type is under development. Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have craft in active development : the SpaceShipTwo spaceplane and the New Shepard capsule, respectively. Both would carry approximately a half-dozen passengers up to space for a brief time of zero gravity before returning to the launch location. XCOR Aerospace had been developing

9660-495: The planned Space Station Freedom into the International Space Station (ISS). Construction of the station began in 1998. The station orbits at an altitude of 409 kilometers (221 nmi) and an orbital inclination of 51.65°. Several of the Space Shuttle's 135 orbital flights were to help assemble, supply, and crew the ISS. Russia has built half of the International Space Station and has continued its cooperation with

9775-438: The programs, and limit the space missions they are able to go on, are, for example: Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, in 1983. Eileen Collins was the first female Shuttle pilot, and with Shuttle mission STS-93 in 1999 she became the first woman to command a U.S. spacecraft. For many years, the USSR (later Russia) and the United States were the only countries whose astronauts flew in space. That ended with

9890-429: The purpose of the flight was purely symbolic. The two nations continued to compete rather than cooperate in space, as the US turned to developing the Space Shuttle and planning the space station, which was dubbed Freedom . The USSR launched three Almaz military sortie stations from 1973 to 1977, disguised as Salyuts. They followed Salyut with the development of Mir , the first modular, semi-permanent space station,

10005-471: The risk of signal interference. Cargo or resupply spacecraft are robotic spacecraft that are designed specifically to carry cargo , possibly to support space stations ' operation by transporting food, propellant and other supplies. Automated cargo spacecraft have been used since 1978 and have serviced Salyut 6 , Salyut 7 , Mir , the International Space Station and Tiangong space station. As of 2023, three different cargo spacecraft are used to supply

10120-513: The rocket that launched the probes (the Titan IIIE ) could not even send the probes to the orbit of Saturn , yet Voyager 1 is travelling at roughly 17 km/s (11 mi/s) and Voyager 2 moves at about 15 km/s (9.3 mi/s) kilometres per second as of 2023. In 2012, Voyager 1 exited the heliosphere, followed by Voyager 2 in 2018. Voyager 1 actually launched 16 days after Voyager 2 but it reached Jupiter sooner because Voyager 2

10235-454: The same way as a spaceship, as they coexist with numerous micro-organisms, and these micro-organisms are also hard to contain within a spaceship or spacesuit. Multiple space probes were sent to study Moon, the planets, the Sun, multiple small Solar System bodies (comets and asteroids). Special class of uncrewed spacecraft is space telescopes , a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. The first operational telescopes were

10350-504: The shuttle was a rather dangerous system, with fragile heat shielding tiles, some being so fragile that one could easily scrape it off by hand, often having been damaged in many flights. After 30 years in service from 1981 to 2011 and 135 flights, the shuttle was retired from service due to the cost of maintaining the shuttles, and the 3 remaining orbiters (the other two were destroyed in accidents) were prepared to be displayed in museums. Some spacecraft do not fit particularly well into any of

10465-583: The sky and beyond. Space telescopes are distinct from Earth imaging satellites , which point toward Earth for satellite imaging , applied for weather analysis , espionage , and other types of information gathering . A lander is a type of spacecraft that makes a soft landing on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth . Some landers, such as Philae and the Apollo Lunar Module , land entirely by using their fuel supply, however many landers (and landings of spacecraft on Earth ) use aerobraking , especially for more distant destinations. This involves

10580-415: The spacecraft using a fuel burn to change its trajectory so it will pass through a planet (or a moon's) atmosphere. Drag caused by the spacecraft hitting the atmosphere enables it to slow down without using fuel, however this generates very high temperatures and so adds a requirement for a heat shield of some sort. Space capsules are a type of spacecraft that can return from space at least once. They have

10695-608: The surface without having gained sufficient energy or velocity to make a full Earth orbit . For orbital spaceflights , spacecraft enter closed orbits around the Earth or around other celestial bodies . Spacecraft used for human spaceflight carry people on board as crew or passengers from start or on orbit ( space stations ) only, whereas those used for robotic space missions operate either autonomously or telerobotically . Robotic spacecraft used to support scientific research are space probes . Robotic spacecraft that remain in orbit around

10810-682: The technology for orbital launches independently from government agencies. The most prominent examples of such companies are SpaceX and Blue Origin . A German V-2 became the first spacecraft when it reached an altitude of 189 km in June 1944 in Peenemünde , Germany. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite . It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit (LEO) by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments; while

10925-470: The time, the only humans in space are those aboard the ISS, which generally has a crew of 7, and those aboard Tiangong, which generally has a crew of 3. NASA and ESA use the term "human spaceflight" to refer to their programs of launching people into space. These endeavors have also formerly been referred to as "manned space missions", though this is no longer official parlance according to NASA style guides, which call for gender-neutral language . Under

11040-420: The viability of astronauts' medium-term stay in space. In April 2017, China's first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou 1 docked with Tiangong 2 and completed multiple in-orbit propellant refueling tests, which marked the successful completion of the second phase of CMS. The third phase of CMS began in 2020. The goal of this phase is to build China's own space station, Tiangong . The first module of Tiangong ,

11155-420: The vicinity of Jupiter are too hostile for human survival. Outer planets such as Saturn , Uranus , and Neptune are too distant to reach with current crewed spaceflight technology, so telerobotic probes are the only way to explore them. Telerobotics also allows exploration of regions that are vulnerable to contamination by Earth micro-organisms since spacecraft can be sterilized. Humans can not be sterilized in

11270-444: Was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin , who launched as part of the Soviet Union's Vostok program on 12 April 1961 at the beginning of the Space Race . On 5 May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, as part of Project Mercury . Humans traveled to the Moon nine times between 1968 and 1972 as part of the United States' Apollo program , and have had a continuous presence in space for 24 years and 28 days on

11385-503: Was Vostok 1 , which carried Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, and completed a full Earth orbit. There were five other crewed missions which used a Vostok spacecraft . The second crewed spacecraft was named Freedom 7 , and it performed a sub-orbital spaceflight in 1961 carrying American astronaut Alan Shepard to an altitude of just over 187 kilometers (116 mi). There were five other crewed missions using Mercury spacecraft . Other Soviet crewed spacecraft include

11500-508: Was a suborbital flight on SpaceShipOne on June 21, 2004. The first commercial orbital crew launch was by SpaceX in May 2020, transporting NASA astronauts to the ISS under United States government contract. Human spaceflight capability was first developed during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). These nations developed intercontinental ballistic missiles for

11615-596: Was a spaceplane that was launched at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre and landed mainly at the Shuttle Landing Facility , which is part of Kennedy Space Centre. A second launch site, Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 6 in California , was revamped so it could be used to launch the shuttles, but it was never used. The launch system could lift about 29 tonnes (64,000 lb) into an eastward Low Earth Orbit . Each orbiter weighed roughly 78 tonnes (172,000 lb), however

11730-417: Was built: Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , and Atlantis . A fifth shuttle, Endeavour , was built to replace Challenger , which was destroyed in an accident during launch that killed 7 astronauts on 28 January 1986. From 1983 to 1998, twenty-two Shuttle flights carried components for a European Space Agency sortie space station called Spacelab in the Shuttle payload bay. The USSR copied

11845-453: Was due to expensive refurbishment costs and the external tank being expended. Once a landing had occurred, the SRBs and many parts of the orbiter had to be disassembled for inspection, which was long and arduous. Furthermore, the RS-25 engines had to be replaced every few flights. Each of the heat shielding tiles had to go in one specific area on the orbiter, increasing complexity more. Adding to this,

11960-660: Was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5 , at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR (now at the Baikonur Cosmodrome ). The satellite travelled at 29,000 kilometres per hour (18,000 mph), taking 96.2 minutes to complete an orbit, and emitted radio signals at 20.005 and 40.002  MHz While Sputnik 1 was the first spacecraft to orbit the Earth, other human-made objects had previously reached an altitude of 100 km, which

12075-669: Was launched in May 2022. A crewed flight to fully certify Starliner was launched in June 2024. Similar to SpaceX, development funding has been provided by a mix of government and private funds. Virgin Galactic is developing SpaceshipTwo , a commercial suborbital spacecraft aimed at the space tourism market. It reached space in December 2018. Blue Origin is in a multi-year test program of their New Shepard vehicle and has carried out 16 uncrewed test flights as of September 2021, and one crewed flight carrying founder Jeff Bezos , his brother Mark Bezos , aviator Wally Funk , and 18-year old Oliver Daemen on July 20, 2021. Over

12190-595: Was manually operated, though an autonomous landing system was added while the shuttle was still on service. It had an in orbit maneouvreing system known as the Orbital Manoeuvring System, which used the hypergolic propellants monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and dinitrogen tetroxide , which was used for orbital insertion, changes to orbits and the deorbit burn. Though the shuttle’s goals were to drastically decrease launch costs, it did not do so, ending up being much more expensive than similar expendable launchers. This

12305-427: Was not until the 1980s that another woman entered space. At the time, all astronauts were required to be military test pilots; women were not able to enter this career, which is one reason for the delay in allowing women to join space crews. After the rules were changed, Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman to enter space; she was also from the Soviet Union . Sally Ride became the next woman to enter space and

12420-511: Was planned by 1993, but the program was canceled due to lack of funding and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Two more orbiters were never completed, and the one that performed the uncrewed flight was destroyed in a hangar roof collapse in May 2002. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to the Cold War and opened the door to true cooperation between the US and Russia. The Soviet Soyuz and Mir programs were taken over by

12535-439: Was planned to begin reusable private spaceflight carrying paying passengers in 2014, but was delayed after the crash of VSS Enterprise . The Space Shuttle is a retired reusable Low Earth Orbital launch system. It consisted of two reusable Solid Rocket Boosters that landed by parachute, were recovered at sea, and were the most powerful rocket motors ever made until they were superseded by those of NASA’s SLS rocket, with

12650-621: Was proposed for space tourism. According to a press release from the Iraqi News Agency dated 5 December 1989, there was only one test of the Al-Abid space launcher, which Iraq intended to use to develop its own crewed space facilities by the end of the century. These plans were put to an end by the Gulf War of 1991 and the economic hardships that followed. Under the George W. Bush administration,

12765-524: Was reconfigured as the European module of the same name on the International Space Station. Japan ( NASDA ) began the development of the HOPE-X experimental shuttle spaceplane in the 1980s, to be launched on its H-IIA expendable launch vehicle. A string of failures in 1998 led to funding reductions, and the project's cancellation in 2003 in favor of participation in the International Space Station program through

12880-493: Was shared by a number of other writers, including Moore's friends Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett . By profession, Smith is an outlaw who lives by a variety of criminal means, including smuggling. By nature, he is an anti-hero, ruthless, self-serving, and cynical. Despite this, he has a core of goodness and often does the right thing in spite of himself. Smith is described as a dark haired man with "space bronzed" skin and pale eyes, who wears brown spacer's leathers and carries

12995-403: Was taking a longer route that allowed it to visit Uranus and Neptune, whereas Voyager 1 did not visit Uranus or Neptune, instead choosing to fly past Saturn’s satellite Titan . As of August 2023, Voyager 1 has passed 160 astronomical units , which means it is over 160 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. This makes it the farthest spacecraft from the Sun. Voyager 2 is 134 AU away from

13110-518: Was the Buran -class shuttle , launched by the USSR on November 15, 1988, although it made only one flight and this was uncrewed. This spaceplane was designed for a crew and strongly resembled the U.S. Space Shuttle, although its drop-off boosters used liquid propellants and its main engines were located at the base of what would be the external tank in the American Shuttle. Lack of funding, complicated by

13225-510: Was the Space Shuttle orbiter . The first orbiter to fly in space, the Space Shuttle Columbia , was launched by the USA on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin 's flight, on April 12, 1981. During the Shuttle era, six orbiters were built, all of which have flown in the atmosphere and five of which have flown in space. Enterprise was used only for approach and landing tests, launching from

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