Beyond Earth History Blog

Rosetta. The end of the mission.     Artist's impression of Rosetta shortly before hitting Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 30 September 2016.  Credit: ESA/ATG medialab     After more than 12 years in space, and two years following comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko as they orbited the Sun, Rosetta mission concluded on September 30, 2016 with the spacecraft descending onto the comet in a region hosting several ancient pits.    Rosetta was a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Rosetta’s Philae lander was provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI. Since launch in 2004, Rosetta was in its sixth orbit around the Sun. Its nearly 8 billion-kilometre journey included three Earth flybys and one at Mars, and two asteroid encounters. The craft endured 31 months in deep-space hibernation on the most distant leg of ...

 Tiangong 1. China's first space station.     Computer-generated rendering of Tiangong 1 in orbit. Credit: China Manned Space Engineering Office   Tiangong 1 (eng. Heavenly Palace 1), the first Chinese space laboratory module and a prototype space station, was launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on September 29, 2011 at 13:16 UT by a Chang Zheng 2F rocket. The module served as both a crewed laboratory and an experimental testbed to demonstrate orbital rendezvous and docking capabilities and to accumulate the experience for the construction, management and operation of a space station.   Tiangong 1  weighed approximately 8,506 kg and measured 10.4 m long with a diameter of 3.35 m. The module had a pressurised habitable volume of approximately 14.4 cubic metres, and used passive APAS-type docking connectors. Structurally, Tiango...

 Luna 19. Heavy lunar orbiter.   Luna 19. Credit: NPO Lavochkin    Luna 19, a Soviet heavy lunar orbiter, was the first mission based on the third generation Ye-8LS orbiter bus. It had a launch mass of 5,330 kg. The bus was similar to the descent stage of the Lunokhod lander missions, consisting of a collection of propellant tanks and rockets, topped by a disc-shaped platform. Two booms protruded radially from opposite sides holding conical antennas and a magnetometer. Mounted on the top platform was a pressurized, hermetically sealed container holding the scientific equipment. It had a hinged lid that would expose solar panels when opened. Luna 19 carried two television cameras, a Vega radar altimeter, and ARL gamma-ray spectrometer, an RV-2NLS radiation detector, a SIM-RMCh micrometeoroid detector, and an SG- 59M magnetometer.    The spacecraft was launched on a P...

 Murchison meteorite   Large individual of the Murchison Meteorite with fusion crust. Field Museum of Natural History meteorite collection, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Credit: James St. John The Murchison meteorite, one of the most studied of all meteorites, that belongs to the CM2 group of carbonaceous chondrites, fell in Australia on September 28, 1969. At approximately 10:58 a.m. local time, near Murchison, Victoria, a bright fireball was observed to separate into three fragments before disappearing, leaving a cloud of smoke. About 30 seconds later, a tremor was heard. Many fragments were found scattered over an area larger than 13 square kilometres, with individual mass up to 7 kilograms; one, weighing 680 grams, broke through a roof and fell in hay. The total collected mass of the meteorite exceeds 100 kilograms. Samples were quickly recovered to minimize contamination with Earth materials.     Several lines of ev...

Sputnik 1. The first in orbit.   I begin my blog about the history of astronomy and space exploration with a post about Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Replica of Sputnik 1 satellite at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum.  Credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum In 1948, Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974), then a deputy chief of a secret Soviet NII-4 research institute, started to make proposals for the construction of multistage rockets for long-range missiles and satellites. The reactions for his reports were initially skeptical, but they piqued the interest of Sergei Korolev (1907–1966), the future chief designer of the Soviet space program at Design Bureau No. 1 (OKB-1). In January 1954, NII-4 officially initiated project to create an artificial Earth satellite. In May 1954 the project received approval from the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences and Korolev submitted a proposal "On the artificial satellite of the Earth" to the Min...