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Kosmos 359
Kosmos 359 was an unmanned Soviet probe launched on 22 August 1970. The probe's intended purpose was to explore Venus, but an error caused the final-stage rocket to malfunction. This left the craft trapped in an elliptical orbit around Earth for 410 days before orbital decay and atmospheric entry. Kosmos 359 was launched five days after Venera 7 and had an identical design; had the craft not suffered a mission-ending failure, it would have landed on Venus shortly after Venera 7. To publicly acknowledge the failure of the attempted Venus lander would be a public relations disaster for the Soviet space program; after the mission failed, the Venera spacecraft was renamed Kosmos 359 in order to conceal the mishap from the public. Design The lander was designed to be able to survive atmospheric pressures of up to and temperatures of . This was significantly greater than what was expected to be encountered, but significant uncertainties as to the surface temperatures and pressure of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker and denser than Earth and any other rocky body in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is composed of mostly carbon dioxide (), with a global sulfuric acid cloud cover and no liquid water. At the mean surface level the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Moon and the Sun, and, like Mercury, appears always relatively close to the Sun, either as a "morning star" or an "evening star", resulting from orbiting closer ( inferior) to the Sun than Earth. The orbits of Venus and Earth make the two planets approach each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lavochkin
NPO Lavochkin (, OKB-301, also called Lavochkin Research and Production Association or shortly Lavochkin Association, LA) is a Russian aerospace company. It is a major player in the Russian space program, being the developer and manufacturer of the Fregat upper stage, as well as interplanetary probes such as Fobos-Grunt. As of 2015, it was headed by Sergei Lemeshevskii. On 10 August 2017 the Lavochkin Association's Board of Directors appointed Vladimir Kolmykov Director General of the enterprise. Overview The company develops and manufactures spacecraft such as the Fregat rocket upper stages, satellites and interplanetary probes. It is a contractor for a number of military programs, such as the Oko early warning satellite, Prognoz and Araks programmes as well as the civilian program Kupon. One of the company's most notable projects was the participation in the failed Fobos-Grunt sample return mission. NPO Lavochkin has also developed the Elektro–L series of new-generation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molniya-M
The Molniya-M (, GRAU index: 8K78M) was a Soviet and Russian launch vehicle derived from the R-7 Semyorka Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The original 8K78 booster had been the product of a rushed development program and its launch record was no better than the 8K72 Luna booster of 1958–1960. As 1962 ended, there had been 12 launches of 8K78s, ten of which failed (five Block L failures, four Block I failures, and one failure caused by the Block A core stage). The two successful launches had had their probes ( Venera 1 and Mars 1) fail en route to their respective planetary targets. As such, work began at the Korolev Bureau to improve the basic 8K78 vehicle. The core and strap-ons received the up-rated 8D74M engines and the Kosberg Bureau completely redesigned the Block I stage. The Block L engine was also slightly enhanced. The first six 8K78Ms built used RD-0108 engines in the Block I stage, which was also used in the two crewed Voskhod boosters, all subseque ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baikonur Cosmodrome
The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are launched from Baikonur. Situated in the Kazakh Steppe, some above sea level, it is to the east of the Aral Sea and north of the Syr Darya. It is close to Töretam, a station on the Trans-Aral Railway. Russia, as the official successor state to the Soviet Union, has retained control over the facility since 1991; it originally assumed this role through the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but ratified an agreement with Kazakhstan in 2005 that allowed it to lease the spaceport until 2050. It is jointly managed by Roscosmos and the Russian Aerospace Forces. In 1955, the Ministry of Defense (Soviet Union), Soviet Ministry of Defense issued a decree and founded the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was originally built as the chief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 31
Baikonur Site 31, also designated as Site 31/6, is a launch complex at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It serves as a key launch site, supporting Soyuz-2 launches for both crewed and uncrewed missions. The site was first utilized on 14 January 1961 for a test flight of the R-7A, an intercontinental ballistic missile on which the Soyuz rocket family was based. Since 2020, following Roscosmos' transition from the Soyuz-FG to the Soyuz-2 rocket for crewed missions, Site 31 has become the primary launch site for Soyuz flights to the International Space Station (ISS). This shift occurred after Site 1/5, also known as Gagarin's Start, failed to secure funding for upgrades to accommodate the slightly larger Soyuz-2 rocket. Before that, it only saw a handful of crewed flights when Site 1/5 was unavailable. History Construction of Site 31/6 at Baikonur began in late 1958 as a second launch complex for the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at the cosmodrome. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geocentric Orbit
A geocentric orbit, Earth-centered orbit, or Earth orbit involves any object orbiting Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. In 1997, NASA estimated there were approximately 2,465 artificial satellite payloads orbiting Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debris as tracked by the Goddard Space Flight Center. More than 16,291 objects previously launched have undergone orbital decay and entered Earth's atmosphere. A spacecraft enters orbit when its centripetal acceleration due to gravity is less than or equal to the centrifugal acceleration due to the horizontal component of its velocity. For a low Earth orbit, this velocity is about ; by contrast, the fastest crewed airplane speed ever achieved (excluding speeds achieved by deorbiting spacecraft) was in 1967 by the North American X-15. The energy required to reach Earth orbital velocity at an altitude of is about 36 MJ/kg, which is six times the energy needed merely to climb to the corresponding altitude. Spa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around , while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude of 2,000 km, about one-third of the Earth radius, radius of Earth and near the beginning of the Van Allen radiation belt#Inner belt, inner Van Allen radiation belt. The term ''LEO region'' is used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. No human spaceflights other than the lunar missions of the Apollo program (1968-1972) have gone beyond L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venera Program
The Venera (, 'Venus') program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Thirteen probes successfully entered the Venusian atmosphere, including the two Venera-Halley probes. Ten of those successfully landed on the surface of the planet. Due to the extreme conditions, the probes could only survive for a short period on the surface, from 23 minutes to two hours. The ''Venera'' program established a number of precedents in space exploration, among them being the first human-made devices to enter the atmosphere of another planet ( Venera 3 on 1 March 1966), the first to make a soft landing on another planet ( Venera 7 on 15 December 1970), the first to return images from another planet's surface (Venera 9 on 8 June 1975), the first to record sounds on another planet (Venera 13 on 30 October 1981), and the first to perform high-resolution radar mapping scans ( Venera 15 on 2 June 1983). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venera 7
Venera 7 () was a Soviet spacecraft, part of the Venera series of probes to Venus. When it landed on the Venusian surface on 15 December 1970, it became the first spacecraft to soft land on another planet and the first to transmit data from there back to Earth. Design The lander was designed to be able to survive pressure of up to and temperatures of . This was much greater than what was expected to be encountered but significant uncertainties as to the surface temperatures and pressure of Venus resulted in the designers opting for a large margin of error. This degree of hardening limited the amount of mass available for scientific instruments both on the probe itself and the interplanetary bus. The interplanetary bus carried a solar-wind charged-particle detector and a cosmic-ray detector. On the lander were temperature and pressure sensors as well as an accelerometer to measure atmospheric density. The probe also carried a radar altimeter. Launch The probe was launched f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venera 8
Venera 8 ( meaning ''Venus 8'') was a probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus and was the second robotic space probe to conduct a successful landing on the surface of Venus. Venera 8 was a Venus atmospheric probe and lander. Its instrumentation included temperature, pressure, and light sensors as well as an altimeter, gamma ray spectrometer, gas analyzer, and radio transmitters. Journey to Venus The spacecraft took 118 days to reach Venus with one mid-course correction on 6 April 1972, separating from the bus (which contained a cosmic ray detector, solar wind detector, and ultraviolet spectrometer) and entering the atmosphere on 22 July 1972 at 08:37 UT. A refrigeration system attached to the bus was used to pre-chill the descent capsule's interior prior to atmospheric entry in order to prolong its life on the surface. Descent speed was reduced from 41,696 km/h to about 900 km/h by atmospheric drag deceleration. The 2.5 meter diameter parach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Probe
Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which they have a pre-programmed list of operations that will be executed unless otherwise instructed. A robotic spacecraft for scientific measurements is often called a space probe or space observatory. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost and risk factors. In addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus or the vicinity of Jupiter are too hostile for human survival, given current technology. 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 sinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliptical Orbit
In astrodynamics or celestial mechanics, an elliptical orbit or eccentric orbit is an orbit with an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity of less than 1; this includes the special case of a circular orbit, with eccentricity equal to 0. Some orbits have been referred to as "elongated orbits" if the eccentricity is "high" but that is not an explanatory term. For the simple two body problem, all orbits are ellipses. In a gravitational two-body problem, both bodies follow Similarity (geometry), similar elliptical orbits with the same orbital period around their common barycenter. The relative position of one body with respect to the other also follows an elliptic orbit. Examples of elliptic orbits include Hohmann transfer orbits, Molniya orbits, and tundra orbits. Velocity Under standard assumptions, no other forces acting except two spherically symmetrical bodies (m_1) and (m_2), the orbital speed (v\,) of one body traveling along an elliptical orbit can be computed from the vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
