The Planetary Society
   HOME
*



picture info

The Planetary Society
The Planetary Society is an American internationally-active non-governmental nonprofit organization. It is involved in research, public outreach, and political space advocacy Space advocacy is supporting or advocating for a human use of outer space. Purposes advocated can reach from space exploration, or commercial use of space to even space settlement. There are many different individuals and organizations dedicat ... for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, and space exploration. It was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce C. Murray, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, and has about 60,000 members from more than 100 countries around the world. The Society is dedicated to the exploration of the Solar System, the search for near-Earth objects, and the search for extraterrestrial life. The society's mission is stated as: "Empowering the world’s citizens to advance space science and exploration." The Planetary Society is a strong advocate for space ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Non-governmental
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit organization, nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in humanitarianism or the social sciences; they can also include club (organization), clubs and voluntary association, associations that provide services to their members and others. Surveys indicate that NGOs have a high degree of public trust, which can make them a useful proxy for the concerns of society and stakeholders. However, NGOs can also be lobby groups for corporations, such as the World Economic Forum. NGOs are distinguished from International organization, international and intergovernmental organizations (''IOs'') in that the latter are more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments. The term as it is used ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Exploration Of The Solar System
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation, visitation, and increase in knowledge and understanding of Earth's "cosmic neighborhood". This includes the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the major planets Mercury (planet), Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, their satellites, as well as smaller bodies including comets, asteroids, and Cosmic dust, dust. In ancient and medieval times, only the Sun, Moon, five classical planets and comets were visible to the naked eye, along with phenomena now known to take place in Earth's atmosphere, like meteors and aurora. Ancient astronomers were able to make geometric observations with various instruments. The collection of precise observations in the early modern period and the invention of the telescope helped determine the overall structure of the solar system and discover new planets and asteroids. Telescopic observations resulted in the discovery of more planets and asteroids and moons, and determination of t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Phobos (moon)
Phobos (; astronomical naming conventions, systematic designation: ) is the innermost and larger of the two moons of Mars, natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos (moon), Deimos. The two moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. It is named after Phobos (mythology), Phobos, the Greek mythology, Greek god of fear and panic, who is the son of Ares (Mars) and twin brother of Deimos (deity), Deimos. Phobos is a small, irregularly shaped object with a mean radius of . Phobos orbits from the Martian surface, closer to its Primary (astronomy), primary body than any other known Natural satellite, planetary moon. It is so close that it orbits Mars much faster than Mars rotates, and completes an orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes. As a result, from the surface of Mars it appears to rise in the west, move across the sky in 4 hours and 15 minutes or less, and set in the east, twice each Mars sol, Martian day. Phobos is one of the least reflective bodie ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fobos-Grunt
Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt (russian: link=no, Фобос-Грунт, where ''грунт'' refers to the ''ground'' in the narrow geological meaning of any type of soil or rock exposed on the surface) was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society. It was launched on 8 November 2011, at 20:16 UTC, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but subsequent rocket burns intended to set the craft on a course for Mars failed, leaving it stranded in low Earth orbit. Efforts to reactivate the craft were unsuccessful, and it fell back to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry on 15 January 2012, over the Pacific Ocean, west of Chile. The return vehicle was to have returned to Earth in August 2014, carrying up to of soil from Phobos. Funded by the Russian Federal Space Agency and developed by Lavochkin and the Russi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Space Shuttle Endeavour
Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' (Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-105) is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135 by the United States Congress, Space Shuttle Atlantis, ''Atlantis'' became the last shuttle to fly. The United States Congress approved the construction of ''Endeavour'' in 1987 to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'', which was Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, destroyed in 1986. NASA chose, on cost grounds, to build much of ''Endeavour'' from spare parts rather than refitting the Space Shuttle Enterprise, Space Shuttle ''Enterprise'', and used structural spares built during the construction of ''Space Shuttle Discovery, Discovery'' and Space Shuttle Atlantis, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

STS-134
STS-134 ( ISS assembly flight ULF6) was the penultimate mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the 25th and last spaceflight of . This flight delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the International Space Station. Mark Kelly served as the mission commander. STS-134 was expected to be the final Space Shuttle mission if STS-135 did not receive funding from Congress. However, in February 2011, NASA stated that STS-135 would fly "regardless" of the funding situation.STS-134 Mission Status
Spaceflight Now.
STS-135, flown by ''Atlantis'', took advantage of the processing for STS-335
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment
The Living Interplanetary Flight ExperimentAsian Scientist"Phobos-Grunt Mission Carrying Yinghuo-1 Space Probe Suffers Technical Glitch" Srinivas Laxman, 9 November 2011 (LIFE or Phobos LIFE) was an interplanetary mission developed by the Planetary Society. It consisted of sending selected microorganisms on a three-year interplanetary round-trip in a small capsule aboard the Russian Fobos-Grunt spacecraft in 2011, which was a failed sample-return mission to the Martian moon Phobos. The Fobos-Grunt mission failed to leave Earth orbit,Universe Today"Russian Space Program Prepares for Phobos-Grunt Re-Entry" David Warmflash, 13 December 2011 and was destroyed. The goal was to test whether selected organisms can survive an as yet undetermined number of years in deep space by flying them through interplanetary space. The experiment would have tested one aspect of transpermia, the hypothesis that life could survive space travel, if protected inside rocks blasted by impact off one plane ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

LightSail-1
LightSail is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing within low Earth orbit using a CubeSat. The project was developed by The Planetary Society, a global non-profit organization devoted to space exploration. It consists of two spacecraft — LightSail 1 and LightSail 2. LightSail 1 was an engineering demonstration mission designed to test its new sail deployment method in space, it did not perform solar sailing. LightSail 2 was a fully functional spacecraft intended to demonstrate true solar sailing and incorporated the lessons learned from LightSail 1. LightSail is a follow-on project to ''Cosmos 1'' — a solar-sail spacecraft designed by The Planetary Society in the early 2000s, which was destroyed during a launch failure in 2005. Both LightSail spacecraft measured (3U CubeSat) in their stowed configuration. After sail deployment, the total area of each spacecraft was . History In 2005, The Planetary Society attempted to send a solar sail satellite named ''Cosmo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Wired (magazine)
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has been in publication since March/April 1993. Several spin-offs have been launched, including '' Wired UK'', ''Wired Italia'', ''Wired Japan'', and ''Wired Germany''. From its beginning, the strongest influence on the magazine's editorial outlook came from founding editor and publisher Louis Rossetto. With founding creative director John Plunkett, Rossetto in 1991 assembled a 12-page prototype, nearly all of whose ideas were realized in the magazine's first several issues. In its earliest colophons, ''Wired'' credited Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan as its "patron saint". ''Wired'' went on to chronicle the evolution of digital technology and its impact on society. ''Wired'' quickly became recognized ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owned by the Fox Corporation. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. Fox News provides service to 86 countries and overseas territories worldwide, with international broadcasts featuring Fox Extra segments during ad breaks. The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1996 to appeal to a conservative audience, hiring former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO. It launched on October 7, 1996, to 17 million cable subscribers. Fox News grew during the late 1990s and 2000s to become the dominant United States cable news subscription network. , approximately 87,118,000 U.S. households (90.8% of television subscr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Cosmos 1
Cosmos 1 was a project by Cosmos Studios and The Planetary Society to test a solar sail in space. As part of the project, an unmanned solar-sail spacecraft named ''Cosmos 1'' was launched into space at 19:46:09 UTC (15:46:09 EDT) on 21 June 2005 from the submarine in the Barents Sea. However, a rocket failure prevented the spacecraft from reaching its intended orbit. Once in orbit, the spacecraft was supposed to deploy a large sail, upon which photons from the Sun would push, thereby increasing the spacecraft's velocity (the contributions from the solar wind are similar, but of much smaller magnitude). Had the mission been successful, it would have been the first ever orbital use of a solar sail to speed up a spacecraft, as well as the first space mission by a space advocacy group. The project budget was US$4 million. The Planetary Society planned to raise another US$4 million for ''Cosmos 2'', a reimplementation of the experiment provisionally to be launched on a Soyuz res ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Solar Sail
Solar sails (also known as light sails and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was IKAROS, launched in 2010. A useful analogy to solar sailing may be a sailing boat; the light exerting a force on the mirrors is akin to a sail being blown by the wind. High-energy laser beams could be used as an alternative light source to exert much greater force than would be possible using sunlight, a concept known as beam sailing. Solar sail craft offer the possibility of low-cost operations combined with long operating lifetimes. Since they have few moving parts and use no propellant, they can potentially be used numerous times for delivery of payloads. Solar sails use a phenomenon that has a proven, measured effect on astrodynamics. Solar pressure affec ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]