Tag Archives: launch

India's Space Program Matures

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Five years ago today — January 10, 2007 — a PSLV-C7 rocket launched from Sriharikota, India, carrying four spacecraft including India’s first recoverable space capsule.


(CartoSat-2 remote sensing satellite. ISRO image.)

The largest of the four spacecraft was CartoSat-2, a three-axis-stabilized remote sensing platform with one-meter resolution. The SRE-1 technology demonstrator was the recoverable capsule, equipped with a heat shield for re-entry and a floatation system. SRE-1 “re-entered in the Bay of Bengal precisely as planned at 04:14 UT on 22 January at 150 km east of Sriharikota, and was hauled by a helicopter from a coast guard vessel.”

The other two spacecraft were LAPAN-Tubsat, a microsatellite built by Indonesia, and PehuenSat-1, a picosatellite from Argentina.

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Another STARSHINE, and a Descendant of BioSat

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A pair of small satellites launched on this date in space history …


(STARSHINE-2, released from the shuttle payload bay. NASA image, from Wikimedia Commons.)

First, 10 years ago today — December 16, 2001 — the crew of STS-108 released STARSHINE-2 while preparing for their return to Earth. Like its predecessors — STARSHINE-1 and STARSHINE-3 — this “microsatellite” was built with the help of students from around the world: students in 26 countries helped to polish the over 800 mirrors that studded the spacecraft’s surface, making the satellite highly reflective so they could track it in its orbit. The STARSHINE acronym stands for “Student Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite Heuristic International Networking Experiment,” and more than 25,000 students participated in the project.

Five years later, on this date in 2006, a Minotaur rocket launched from Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying the “nanosatellite” GeneSat-1. Conceptually similar to BioSatellite-1, GeneSat-1 carried samples of bacteria — specifically, E. Coli — to monitor the effects of space radiation. Unlike the BioSatellite series, which involved returning the samples to earth for study, GeneSat-1 carried special optical instruments to observe the bacteria and radioed those observations to the ground.

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Sometimes a Successful Launch Isn't Enough

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Forty-five years ago today — December 14, 1966 — a Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying a set of biological specimens to study how microgravity affected them.


(Biosatellite-1 launch. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Biosatellite-1 made it to orbit successfully. The overall mission failed, however, because the capsule could not be de-orbited. Its retro rocket malfunctioned, leaving the spacecraft in orbit; its orbit eventually decayed in February 1967, but that was long after the experiment’s usefulness would have passed.

Nevertheless, this NASA page about the program notes that Biosatellite-1 “provided technical confidence in the program because of excellent performance in most other areas.” The next biosatellite launch was a complete success.

One might wonder why experiments like these would be carried out, since human beings had been launched into space for years. Didn’t we already know how the space environment affected biological organisms? To an extent, yes, but as I understand it sending up small-scale, short-lived species and studying the effects on them would allow scientists to extrapolate to longer-term effects on larger organisms — like people on long-duration spaceflights.

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Space Power … Electrical Power, That Is

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Five years ago today — December 10, 2006 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to improve the electrical power subsystem on the International Space Station.


(The International Space Station as seen from STS-116. NASA image.)

Mission STS-116‘s crew consisted of U.S. astronauts William A. Oefelein, Joan E. Higginbotham, Mark L. Polansky, Robert L. Curbeam, Nicholas J.M. Patrick, and Sunita L. Williams, plus European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang of Sweden. With the exception of Williams, the crew spent 12 days in space; she, however, stayed aboard the ISS as the Expedition 14 flight engineer. ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany, previous ISS flight engineer, returned to Earth with STS-116.

From 1998 to 2006, the ISS had essentially been operating on a temporary power system. The STS-116 crew rectified that situation and prepared the station for its additional modules by rewiring the ISS … certainly not a complete “makeover” of the station, but in many ways an “extreme” one.

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Dual Launch on a Delta-II, and an Old Test Satellite

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Ten years ago today — December 7, 2001 — a Delta-II launch vehicle carried two satellites into orbit from Vandenberg AFB.


(Artist’s conception of the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics [TIMED] satellite. NASA image.)

Jason-1 was a joint mission between the U.S. and France: an oceanographic satellite intended to monitor the level and wave heights of the ocean surface. The Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics, or TIMED, satellite was designed to study “the physical and chemical processes acting within and upon the coupled mesosphere,” i.e., that portion of the atmosphere between 60-180 km altitude. This region of the atmosphere “is difficult to study because it is too high for even the largest research balloons and still dense enough to quickly cause a satellite to decay from orbit.”

In earlier space history, on this date 45 years ago, Applications Technology Satellite 1 (ATS-1) launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas Agena rocket. ATS-1 was a test platform for new spacecraft design concepts, particularly propulsion and attitude control, as well as a remote sensing satellite that collected meterological data and cloud cover images. ATS-1 also tested improved satellite communications.

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International Space Ferry

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Ten years ago today — December 5, 2001 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to the International Space Station.


(Shuttle Endeavour being readied for the STS-108 mission. NASA image.)

STS-108 delivered the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the ISS. Astronauts Dominic L. Gorie, Mark E. Kelly, Linda M. Godwin, and Daniel M. Tani attached the Italian cargo module to the ISS’s Unity module, and ferried the ISS Expedition 4 crew — cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko and astronauts Carl E. Walz and Daniel W. Bursch — to their new orbital home.

When Endeavour landed, it brought the ISS Expedition 3 crew — astronaut Frank Culbertson and cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin and Vladimir N. Dezhurov — back to Earth.

I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog that I met Captain (USN) Culbertson several years after his return from the ISS. I sat next to him during a day-long NASA Industry-Education Forum. Good guy.

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Mars Pathfinder

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Fifteen years ago today — December 4, 1996 — a Delta-II rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station carrying the Mars Pathfinder lander and rover.


(Martian sunset (false color view). NASA image.)

Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars on July 4, 1997, and deployed the Sojourner rover (named for Sojourner Truth). After it landed, the Pathfinder’s name was changed to the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.

The mission was a great success, with the rover lasting twelve times longer than its design life and the lander lasting three times as long. The last Mars Pathfinder data transmission was sent on September 27, 1997.

Lessons learned from the Mars Pathfinder mission went into building the follow-on Spirit and Odyssey rovers, as well as the much larger and more ambitious Curiosity rover which launched November 26, 2011, on the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

May Curiosity meet with even greater success than its predecessors.

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Two Chimps: One an Astronaut, One a Writer

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Fifty years ago today — November 29, 1961 — NASA launched the last “orbital qualification flight” for the Mercury program.


(Enos, the Mercury-Atlas 5 passenger. NASA image.)

Mission Mercury-Atlas 5 carried a chimpanzee, Enos, that “performed various psychomotor activities during the flight and was found to be in excellent physical condition following splashdown.” Enos was supposed to make three orbits around the Earth, but mission controllers brought him back after only two orbits because of a propulsion system problem.

(Aside: Lucky chimp, got to be an astronaut.)

As for the writer chimp, that would be me.

Usually, when it comes to literary primates, I think about hypothetical monkeys at typewriters, trying to produce Shakespeare; you too may be familiar with the infinite monkey theorem.* But monkeys have tails, and we already have Shakespeare, so I’ll live with the chimp metaphor.

Anyway, yesterday marked another metaphorical milestone for me in terms of my writing career, such as it is: I sent in my contracts — and, perhaps more important, my money — to upgrade to “Active” membership in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.

Soon, then, even though my fiction doesn’t come close to paying the bills, I may be considered a “professional” writer.

___
*An even more entertaining Wikipedia entry: the infinite monkey theorem in popular culture.

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Happy Thanksgiving! Oh, and Some Space History

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Wishing you and yours a most Happy Thanksgiving!

Walking the dog this morning, I thought about things for which I’m thankful — the list is long, and I’m sure I didn’t think of everything. More things are coming to mind even as I type this.

I think it’s good for us to pause, reflect, and express appreciation for what we have — especially family and friends — rather than being bitter and resentful over things we don’t have. The Apostle Paul wrote that he had learned how to be content in every situation;* I’m not quite there yet, but I hope to be.

So, may we all find things for which we can be truly thankful, today and every day.

[BREAK, BREAK]

Now, the promised “Space History”…

Twenty years ago today — November 24, 1991 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on a Department of Defense mission.


(DSP satellite being tilted to its predeployment position in the shuttle’s payload bay. NASA image.)

During mission STS-44, astronauts Frederick D. Gregory, Terence T. “Tom” Henricks, James S. Voss, Story F. Musgrave, Thomas J. Hennan, and Mario Runco deployed the third Defense Support Program (DSP) missile warning satellite.

Without going into too much detail, DSP satellites stare at the earth, looking for the infrared signatures of rocket exhaust that would indicate ballistic missile launches.

Which, if nothing else, perhaps we can all be thankful for eyes in the sky that are watching out for sneak attacks.

___
*Philippians chapter 4.

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Free-Flying Space Experiments

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Fifteen years ago today — November 19, 1996 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying a spacecraft with a really long acronym.


(STS-80 launch. NASA image.)

Mission STS-80 carried the “Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph-Shuttle Pallet Satellite II,” known also as ORFEUS-SPAS II, a free-flying research spacecraft built in Germany. It also carried the Wake Shield Facility on its third flight. Both free-flying payloads were deployed, completed their experiments, and were retrieved without incident.

Astronauts Kenneth D. Cockrell, Kent V. Rominger, Tamara E. Jernigan, Thomas D. Jones, and F. Story Musgrave spent 17 days in space, carrying out all the planned experiments except for two spacewalks that were cancelled because of a problem with the shuttle’s hatch.

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