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Giotto Probe
''Giotto'' was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft flew by and studied Halley's Comet and in doing so became the first spacecraft to make close up observations of a comet. On 13 March 1986, the spacecraft succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. It was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the star of Bethlehem in his painting ''Adoration of the Magi'' in the Scrovegni Chapel. Mission Originally a United States partner probe was planned that would accompany ''Giotto'', but this fell through due to budget cuts at NASA. There were plans to have observation equipment on board a Space Shuttle in low-Earth orbit around the time of ''Giotto''s fly-by, but they in turn fell through with the ''Challenger'' disaster. The plan then became a cooperative armada of five space probes including ''Giotto'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giotto Spacecraft
''Giotto'' was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft flew by and studied Halley's Comet and in doing so became the first spacecraft to make close up observations of a comet. On 13 March 1986, the spacecraft succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. It was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the star of Bethlehem in his painting ''Adoration of the Magi'' in the Scrovegni Chapel. Mission Originally a United States partner probe was planned that would accompany ''Giotto'', but this fell through due to budget cuts at NASA. There were plans to have observation equipment on board a Space Shuttle in low-Earth orbit around the time of ''Giotto''s fly-by, but they in turn fell through with the ''Challenger'' disaster. The plan then became a cooperative armada of five space probes including ''Giotto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Of Bethlehem
The Star of Bethlehem, or Christmas Star, appears in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 where "wise men from the East" (Magi) are inspired by the star to travel to Jerusalem. There, they meet King Herod of Judea, and ask him: Herod calls together his scribes and priests who, quoting a verse from the Book of Micah, interpret it as a prophecy that the Jewish Messiah would be born in Bethlehem to the south of Jerusalem. Secretly intending to find and kill the Messiah in order to preserve his own kingship, Herod invites the wise men to return to him on their way home. The star leads them to Jesus' Bethlehem birthplace, where they worship him and give him gifts. The wise men are then given a divine warning not to return to Herod, so they return home by a different route. Many Christians believe the star was a miraculous sign. Some theologians claimed that the star fulfilled a prophecy, known as the Star Prophecy. Astronomers have made several attempts to link ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whipple Shield
The Whipple shield or Whipple bumper, invented by Fred Whipple, is a type of hypervelocity impact shield used to protect crewed and uncrewed spacecraft from collisions with micrometeoroids and orbital debris whose velocities generally range between . According to NASA, the Whipple shield is designed to withstand collisions with debris up to 1 cm, which helps to mitigate the Kessler syndrome. Shield In contrast to monolithic shielding of early spacecraft, Whipple shields consist of a relatively thin outer bumper spaced some distance from the main spacecraft wall. The bumper is not expected to stop the incoming particle or even remove much of its energy, but to break up and disperse it, dividing the original particle energy among many fragments that fan out between bumper and wall. The original particle energy is spread more thinly over a larger wall area, which is more likely to withstand it. A direct analogy is that a lighter bullet resistant vest is needed to stop a load ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GEOS (satellite)
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] |
Giotto Whipple Shield ESA239195
Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period. Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence".Bartlett, Kenneth R. (1992). ''The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance''. Toronto: D.C. Heath and Company. (Paperback). p. 37. Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break with the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years".Giorgio Vasari, ''Lives of the Artists'', trans. George Bull, Penguin Classics, (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halley Armada
The Halley Armada is the name of a series of space probes, five of which were successful, sent to examine Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn through the inner Solar System, connected with apparition "1P/1982 U1". The armada included one probe from the European Space Agency, two probes that were joint projects between the Soviet Union and France and two probes from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan. Notably, NASA did not contribute a probe to the Halley Armada. Main space probes Probes involved (in order of closest approach): *Giotto (596 km), the first space probe to get close-up color images of the nucleus of a comet. (ESA) *Vega 2 (8,030 km), which dropped a balloon probe and lander on Venus before going on to Halley. (USSR/France Intercosmos) *Vega 1 (8,889 km), which dropped a balloon probe and lander on Venus before going on to Halley. (USSR/France Intercosmos) *Suisei (151,000 km), also known as PLANET-A. Data from Sakigake was used to improve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Cometary Explorer
The International Cometary Explorer (ICE) spacecraft (designed and launched as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) satellite), was launched 12 August 1978, into a heliocentric orbit. It was one of three spacecraft, along with the mother/daughter pair of ISEE-1 and ISEE-2, built for the International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) program, a joint effort by NASA and ESRO/ESA to study the interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind. ISEE-3 was the first spacecraft to be placed in a halo orbit at the Earth-Sun Lagrange point. Renamed ICE, it became the first spacecraft to visit a comet, passing through the plasma tail of comet Giacobini-Zinner within about of the nucleus on 11 September 1985. NASA suspended routine contact with ISEE-3 in 1997, and made brief status checks in 1999 and 2008. On 29 May 2014, two-way communication with the spacecraft was reestablished by the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, an unofficial group, with support from the Skycorp com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suisei (spacecraft)
, originally known as Planet-A, was an unmanned space probe developed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (now part of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA). It constituted a part of the Halley Armada together with ''Sakigake'', the Soviet Vega probes, the ESA ''Giotto'' and the NASA International Cometary Explorer, to explore Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn through the inner solar system. Spacecraft ''Suisei'' was identical in construction and shape to ''Sakigake'', but carried a different payload: a CCD UV imaging system and a solar wind instrument. The main objective of the mission was to take UV images of the hydrogen corona for about 30 days before and after Comet Halley's descending crossing of the ecliptic plane. Solar wind parameters were measured for a much longer time period. The spacecraft is spin-stabilized at two different rates (5 and 0.2 rpm). Hydrazine thrusters are used for attitude and velocity control; star and sun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sakigake
, known before launch as MS-T5, was Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft, and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the USA or the Soviet Union. It aimed to demonstrate the performance of the new launch vehicle, test its ability to escape from Earth gravity, and observe the interplanetary medium and magnetic field. ''Sakigake'' was also supposed to act as a frame of reference for data received from probes that flew closer to Halley's Comet. Early measurements would be used to improve the mission of the Suisei probe launched several months later. ''Sakigake'' was developed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science for the National Space Development Agency (both of which are now part of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA). It became a part of the Halley Armada together with Suisei, the Soviet Vega probes, the ESA Giotto and the NASA International Cometary Explorer, to explore Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vega Program
The Vega program (Cyrillic: ВеГа) was a series of Venus missions that also took advantage of the appearance of comet 1P/Halley in 1986. ''Vega 1'' and ''Vega 2'' were uncrewed spacecraft launched in a cooperative effort among the Soviet Union (who also provided the spacecraft and launch vehicle) and Austria, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Federal Republic of Germany in December 1984. They had a two-part mission to investigate Venus and also flyby Halley's Comet. The flyby of Halley's Comet had been a late mission change in the Venera program following on from the cancellation of the American Halley mission in 1981. A later Venera mission was canceled and the Venus part of the ''Vega 1'' mission was reduced. Because of this, the craft was designated VeGa, a contraction of ''Venera'' and ''Gallei'' (Венера and Галлей respectively, the Russian words for "Venus" and "Halley"). The spacecraft design was bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STS-51-L
STS-51-L was the 25th mission of the NASA Space Shuttle program and the final flight of Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. Planned as the first Teacher in Space Project flight in addition to observing Halley's Comet for six days and performing a routine satellite deployment, the mission never achieved orbit; a structural failure during its ascent phase 73 seconds after launch from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B on January 28, 1986, killed all seven crew members —Commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik and Ronald E. McNair, and Payload Specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and S. Christa McAuliffe—and destroyed the orbiter. Immediately after the disaster, President Ronald Reagan convened the Rogers Commission to determine the cause of the explosion. The failure of an O-ring seal on the starboard Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was determined to have caused the shuttle to break up in flight. Space Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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