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Astérix (satellite)
''Astérix'' or A-1 (initially conceptualized as FR.2 or FR-2) is the first French satellite. It was launched on 26 November 1965 by a Diamant A rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, Algeria. With ''Astérix'', France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite and the third country to launch a satellite on its own rocket. Its main purpose was to test the Diamant launcher, though it was also designed to study the ionosphere. ''Astérix'' continues to orbit Earth as of 2022 and is expected to remain in orbit for centuries. Background The French space agencies Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) and Centre national d'études des télécommunications (CNET) were developing ''Astérix'' concurrent with FR-1, another satellite, as early as 1963. FR-1 was the first step of an ambitious French plan to launch six FR-series satellites, each meant to study a different aspect of the Earth's atmosphere. FR-1 was generally designed to study the Earth's magnet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Sensor
A sun sensor is a navigational instrument used by spacecraft to detect the position of the sun. Sun sensors are used for attitude control, solar array pointing, gyro updating, and fail-safe recovery. In addition to spacecraft, sun sensors find use in ground-based weather stations and sun-tracking systems, and aerial vehicles including balloons and UAVs. Mechanism There are various types of sun sensors, which differ in their technology and performance characteristics. Sun presence sensors provide a binary output, indicating when the sun is within the sensor's field of view. Analog and digital sun sensors, in contrast, indicate the angle of the sun by continuous and discrete signal outputs, respectively. In typical sun sensors, a thin slit at the top of a rectangular chamber allows a line of light to fall on an array of photodetector cells at the bottom of the chamber. A voltage is induced in these cells, which is registered electronically. By orienting two sensors perpendicular to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiberglass
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth. The plastic matrix may be a thermoset polymer matrix—most often based on thermosetting polymers such as epoxy, polyester resin, or vinyl ester resin—or a thermoplastic. Cheaper and more flexible than carbon fiber, it is stronger than many metals by weight, non- magnetic, non-conductive, transparent to electromagnetic radiation, can be molded into complex shapes, and is chemically inert under many circumstances. Applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bath tubs and enclosures, swimming pools, hot tubs, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, orthopedic casts, surfboards, and external door skins. Other common names for fiberglass are glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), glass-fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) or GF ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Space Research Organisation
The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964. As an organisation ESRO was based on a previously existing international scientific institution, CERN. The ESRO convention, the organisations founding document outlines it as an entity exclusively devoted to scientific pursuits. This was the case for most of its lifetime but in the final years before the formation of ESA, the European Space Agency, ESRO began a programme in the field of telecommunications. Consequently, ESA is not a mainly pure science focused entity but concentrates on telecommunications, earth observation and other application motivated activities. ESRO was merged with ELDO in 1975 to form the European Space Agency. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Geneva, on the France–Switzerland border. It comprises 23 member states, and Israel (admitted in 2013) is currently the only non-European country holding full membership. CERN is an official United Nations General Assembly observer. The acronym CERN is also used to refer to the laboratory; in 2019, it had 2,660 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members, and hosted about 12,400 users from institutions in more than 70 countries. In 2016, CERN generated 49 petabytes of data. CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research — consequently, numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN through international collaborations. CERN is the site of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saphir (rocket)
Saphir VE231 (French, meaning ''sapphire'') was a French sounding rocket. It was part of the "''pierres précieuses''" ("precious stones") family of launch vehicles. Saphir was used between 1965 and 1967 and had a payload capacity of . The rocket could reach a maximum altitude of and produced thrust of at launch. Saphir had a launch mass of , a diameter of and a length of . Saphir was launched 15 times, from July 5, 1965, to January 27, 1967. The Diamant rocket, which carried the first French satellite, Asterix-1, into orbit, was developed from the Saphir with the addition of a third stage. After the successful launch of Diamant, Saphir rockets were used to test technologies for France's burgeoning intercontinental ballistic missile development—namely radio and inertial guidance, warhead separation, and ablative heat shielding of a re-entry vehicle. See also * French space program The French space program includes both commercial spaceflight, civil and military spaceflig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermediate-range Ballistic Missile
An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km (1,864–3,418 miles), between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ballistic missiles by range is done mostly for convenience; in principle there is very little difference between a low-performance ICBM and a high-performance IRBM, because decreasing payload mass can increase range over ICBM threshold. The range definition used here is used within the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. Some other sources include an additional category, the long-range ballistic missile (LRBM), to describe missiles with a range between IRBMs and true ICBMs. The more modern term theatre ballistic missile encompasses MRBMs and SRBMs, including any ballistic missile with a range under . The progenitor for the IRBM was the A4b winged rocket, based on the V-2 (officially called A4) rocket used by Nazi Germany at the end of World War II ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
V-2 Rocket
The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities. The rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line (edge of space) with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944. Research into military use of long-range rockets began when the graduate studies of Wernher von Braun attracted the attention of the Wehrmacht. A series of prototypes culminated in the A-4, which went to war as the . Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 were launched by the Wehrmacht against Allied targets, first London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a 2011 BBC documentary, the attacks from r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaullism
Gaullism (french: link=no, Gaullisme) is a French political stance based on the thought and action of World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who would become the founding President of the Fifth French Republic. De Gaulle withdrew French forces from the NATO Command structure, forced the removal of Allied bases from France, and initiated France's own independent nuclear deterrent programme. His actions were predicated on the view that France would not be subordinate to other nations. According to Serge Berstein, Gaullism is "neither a doctrine nor a political ideology" and cannot be considered either left or right. Rather, "considering its historical progression, it is a pragmatic exercise of power that is neither free from contradictions nor of concessions to momentary necessity, even if the imperious word of the general gives to the practice of Gaullism the allure of a programme that seems profound and fully realised". Gaullism is "a peculiarly French phenome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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