Spacecraft
Sputnik1:
Country of launch: USSR
Date of launch: October 4, 1957
Size: 58cm diameter
Weight: 83kg
Crew: None
Orbit rate and shape: 96.2 minutes, elliptical (946km)
Function: Radioed data consisting of cosmic rays, meteoroids and the earth’s atmosphere.
Endurance: 21 days of functional activity, 57 of orbit.
Explorer 1:
Country of launch: The U.S.A.
Date of launch: January 31, 1958
Size: 15cm diameter, 203cm long
Weight: 14kg
Crew: None
Function: Transmitted measurements of cosmic rays and micrometeoroids which led to the discovery of the Van Allen belts around the earth.
Endurance: 112 days of functional activity and lasted in orbit until 1970.
Vanguard 1:
Country of launch: The U.S.A.
Date of launch: March 17, 1958
Size: Diameter 16cm
Weight: 1.5kg
Crew: None
Function: Studied its own orbit precisely and discovered that the Earth is slightly pear shaped, powered by solar panels.
Endurance: More than six years of transmitting data.
Sputnik 2:
Country of Launch: The USSR
Launch date: November 3, 1957
Size: Height 1.2 metres
Weight: 508kg
Crew: 1 dog called Laika
Function: This satellite carried out biological experiments and observations on a dog named Laika. Laika was housed in a pressurized cabin and survived for several days in which data was recorded about her bodily functions. She died of a lethal injection.
Vostok 1:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: April 12, 1961
Size: Max. diameter 2.4 metres
Weight: 4.7 tonnes
Crew: 1 personnel
Function: This was the world’s first manned spacecraft which carried Yuri Gagarin into orbit. The flight is totally controlled via the ground controllers on earth because scientists feared that space flight might incapacitate humans. Once the retro rocket has manoeuvred the craft out of orbit, the spacecraft drops to earth. When it has reached the lower atmosphere, the cosmonaut(s) were ejected out of the capsule and gently floated back to earth with a parachute.
Friendship 7 (Mercury1):
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: February 20, 1962
Size: Length 2.9 metres, Max diameter 1.9 metres
Weight: 1.9 tonnes
Crew: 1 personnel
Function: The first of the Mercury class spacecraft which carried the first Americans into space.
Voskhod 2:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: March 18, 1965
Size: 2.3 metre diameter
Weight: 5.3 tonnes
Crew: 3 personnel
Function: Carried Pavel I. Belyayev and Alexi A. Leonov. Leonov makes the first ever spacewalk lasting 10 minutes. He only just manages to get back into the airlock because of ballooning of spacesuit. When re-entering back into earth, a sensor failed forcing the crew to prepare for a manual re-entry landing 1000km off course in Siberia where they had to wait overnight for rescue, being menaced by a bear in the process.
Gemini 4:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: June 3, 1965
Size: Length 5.6 metres, max diameter 3.1 metres
Weight: 3.7 tonnes
Crew: 1 personnel
Function: Edward H. White makes the first US spacewalk, spanning 21 minutes while manoeuvring with a gas gun. The Gemini program was essentially designed to develop the technology required to go to the moon.Shen Zhou:
Country of Launch: PRC
Launch date: October 15th 2003
Size: -
Weight -:
Crew: 1 personnel
Function: This 2.4 billion dollar project headed by the military has both political and scientific reasons; to establish international prestige for China, to earn global recognition, to invoke national patriotism and perhaps to gain a first hand view on the effects of space to humans. The pilot; Yang Li-wei, was promoted to a full colonel after the trip and became something of a national hero.Soyuz 1:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: April 23-24 , 1967
Size: Length 7.9m, max diameter 2.7metres
Weight: 6.8tonnes
Crew: 1 (maximum 3) personnel
Function: The main Soviet spacecraft since its disastrous debut on the Soyuz 1 mission on April of 1967 when the pilot; Vladimir Komarov was killed in a re-entry parachute malfunction.
Apollo CSM (Command and service module, not including rocket):
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: First in 1967
Size: Length 10.4 metres, max diameter 3.8metres
Weight: 30 tonnes
Crew: 3 personnel
Function: The command and service modules formed the main part of the Apollo spacecraft which was first tested in Earth orbit in 1968 following a tragic fire in 1967 of Apollo 1 which killed all three on board and extensive modifications thereafter. During the period when the astronauts landed on the moon, the CSM orbited the moon whilst the other astronauts were on the surface, with the landing craft. Afterwards, the CSM would pick up the astronauts (by docking with the landing craft which would be boosted into space by rockets) and then brining all of them safely back to earth.
Luna 3:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: October 4 1959
Size:
Weight: 279kg
Crew: none
Function: On October 7th Luna 3 begins taking photographs of the Moon from a distance of 65 000 km showing the far side of the moon for the first time.
Luna 17:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: November 10, 1970
Size:
Weight: 5.6 tonnes
Crew: none
Function: A lunar Lander which carried the tub shaped wheeled Lunokhod 1 rover (756kg) which id remotely guided from Earth. It survives for 322 days.
Ranger 7:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: July 28 1964
Size:
Weight: 366kg
Crew: none
Function: The first successful Ranger mission, the spacecraft returns thousand of images of the moon before crash-landing on the moon. Ranger 7 was followed by Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 which all crash landed.
Apollo LM (Lunar module):
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: First moon landing 1969 (Apollo 11)
Size: length 7 metres, max diameter 2.4metres
Weight: 16 tonnes
Crew: 2
Function: The Apollo LM was a part of the Apollo spacecraft designed to transport astronauts between the CSM and the surface of the moon.
Salyut 1:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: April 19, 1971
Size: length 14.5 metres (Salyut/Soyuz complex 23metres), max diameter 4.15metres
Weight: 19 tonnes (Salyut/Soyuz complex 26 tonnes)
Crew: 3
Function: The first space station. Its crew perished on re-entry after a record breaking three weeks in orbit. Salyut 1 was deliberately de-orbited on October 11, 1971.
Skylab 2:
Country of launch: US
Launch date: May 14, 1973
Size: Length 36metres (with Apollo CSM) Maximum diameter-6.6metres
Weight: 90 tonnes (With Apollo CSM)
Crew: 3
Function: The first and only US space station assembled from surplus Apollo hardware. Following its near disastrous launch, its three crew broke all previous space duration records.
Mir core station:
Country of launch: USSR
Launch date: February 19, 1986
Size: Length 13.1metres, max diameter 4.15metres.
Weight:
Crew:
Function: The Mir core module possessed six docking ports and is the basic accommodation/control unit of the completed space station to which the other scientific modules were attached. The crew were ferried to and from the station with the Soyuz spacecrafts.
Voyager 2:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: August 20, 1977
Size:
Weight: 825 tonnes
Crew: None
Function: One of the most successful probes in history, visiting Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus during a 12 year mission of 7 000 000 000 km. It carries a record disc of sounds and sights from Earth. For a while after passing the edge of the Solar System it still transmitted data.
Mariner 4:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: November 28, 1964
Size:
Weight: 261 tonnes
Crew: None
Function: The first successful probe the Mars and the first planetary probe to return images from a distance of 220 million km. A total of 21 (overlapping) images haven being taken.
Mars Global Surveyor:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: November 6, 1996
Size:
Weight: 1.1 tonnes
Crew: None
Function: The mars Global Surveyor scanned the Martian surface at greater resolution than ever before as well as taking instrumental measurements from orbit. It confirmed the presence of large subterranean channels which implies that the northern hemisphere may have supported a cast body of water somewhere earlier in it’s history.
Mars pathfinder:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: December 2, 1996
Size:
Weight: 800 tonnes
Crew: None
Function: The Mars pathfinder carried a small roving vehicle (‘Sojourner? to explore and roam the Martian landscape; taking photographs and collecting data about the Martian soil. However, no organic or meteoritic matter was detected.
Space Shuttle Columbia:
Country of launch: USA
Launch date: First flight; April 12, 1981
Size: -
Weight: Around 2000 tonnes
Crew: 2 (later missions carried more personnel)
Function: The first successful space shuttle launch following an instrument malfunction that delayed the first proposed flight. During the flight, several heat resistant tiles were ripped off the tail section though it did not pose to be dangerous when re-entering the atmosphere. This left an extremely significant mark in history; the advent of reusable space craft.
