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2003 In Spaceflight
This article outlines notable events occurring in 2003 in spaceflight, including major launches and EVAs. Space Shuttle Columbia disaster First human spaceflight mission from China Orbital launches , colspan=8, January , - , colspan=8, February , - , colspan=8, March , - , colspan=8, April , - , colspan=8, May , - , colspan=8, June , - , colspan=8, July , - , colspan=8, August , - , colspan=8, September , - , colspan=8, October , - , colspan=8, November , - , colspan=8, December , - Suborbital launches , colspan=8, January , - , colspan=8, March , - , colspan=8, April , - , - , colspan=8, December , - Deep Space Rendezvous EVAs Orbital launch statistics By country For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the space ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg Space Force Base, a United States military installation with a spaceport * Vandenberg (band), a Dutch hard rock band ** ''Vandenberg'' (album), their 1982 debut album * Vandenberg resolution, a United States Congress resolution passed in 1948 {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field centers, field centers. Since 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of American spaceflight, research, and technology. Launch operations for the Apollo Program, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle Program, Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources, and operate facilities on each other's property. Though the first Apollo flights and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space—''what'' they are, rather than ''where'' they are", which is studied in celestial mechanics. Among the subjects studied are the Sun ( solar physics), other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium, and the cosmic microwave background. Emissions from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, ''astrophysicists'' apply concepts and methods from many disciplines of physics, including classical mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CHIPSat
CHIPS (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer, also Explorer 82 or UNEX-2) was a NASA Explorer program satellite. It was launched on 12 January 2003 from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II with the larger satellite ICESat, and had an intended mission duration of one year. CHIPS was the second of NASA's University Explorer (UNEX) mission class. It performed spectroscopy from 90 to 250 Angstrom (9 to 26-nm) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light. Mission The primary objective of the science team, led by principal investigator Mark Hurwitz, was to study the million-degree gas in the local interstellar medium. CHIPS was designed to capture the first spectra of the faint, extreme ultraviolet glow that is expected to be emitted by the hot interstellar gas within about 300 light-years of the Sun, a region often referred to as the Local Bubble. Surprisingly, these measurements produced a null result, with only very faint EUV emissions detected, despite theoretical expectatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oceanography
Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries; ecosystem dynamics; and plate tectonics and seabed geology. Oceanographers draw upon a wide range of disciplines to deepen their understanding of the world’s oceans, incorporating insights from astronomy, biology, chemistry, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology and physics. History Early history Humans first acquired knowledge of the waves and currents of the seas and oceans in pre-historic times. Observations on tides were recorded by Aristotle and Strabo in 384–322 BC. Early exploration of the oceans was primarily for cartography and mainly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States's civil list of government space agencies, space program, aeronautics research and outer space, space research. National Aeronautics and Space Act, Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft and the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ICESat
ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) was a NASA satellite mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. It operated as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). ICESat was launched 13 January 2003 on a Delta II launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into a near-circular, near-polar orbit with an altitude of approximately . It operated for seven years before being retired in February 2010, after its scientific payload shut down and scientists were unable to restart it. The ICESat mission was designed to provide elevation data needed to determine ice sheet mass balance as well as cloud property information, especially for stratospheric clouds common over polar areas. It provides topography and vegetation data around the globe, in addition to the polar-specific coverage over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The satellite was found useful in assessing im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boeing IDS
Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) is a division of the Boeing Company based in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The division builds military airplanes, rotorcraft, and missiles, as well as space systems for both commercial and military customers, including satellites, spacecraft, and rockets. It was formerly known as Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS), which was formed in 2002 by combining the former "Military Aircraft and Missile Systems" and "Space and Communications" divisions. The group that brought together major names in aerospace; Boeing Military Airplane Company; Hughes Satellite Systems; Hughes Helicopters (the civilian helicopter line was divested as MD Helicopters); Piasecki Helicopter (subsequently known as Boeing Vertol and Boeing Helicopters); the McDonnell division of McDonnell Douglas; and the former North American Aviation division of Rockwell International. Boeing Defense, Space & Security made Boeing the third-largest defense contract ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 2
Space Launch Complex 2 (SLC-2) is an active rocket launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base, in California, USA. It consists of two launch pads: Space Launch Complex 2 East (SLC-2E, originally LC 75-1-1), used by the PGM-17 Thor missile and several of its derivatives from 1958 to 1972; and Space Launch Complex 2 West (SLC-2W, originally LC 75-1-2), which has been in use since 1959 to launch the Thor-Delta family and Delta II, and is currently used by the Firefly Alpha. Space Launch Complex 2 was originally part of Launch Complex 75 (LC 75) and was known by designation LC 75-1 or just 75-1 (and the launch pads were designated LC 75-1-1 and LC 75–1–2). The first launch out of the newly designated Space Launch Complex 2 was that of a Delta E with ESSA-3 on 2 October 1966 from SLC-2E. SLC-2E and SLC-2W are located approximately apart. SLC-2W Thor and Thor-Agena (1959–1968) Space Launch Complex 2 West (originally Launch Complex 75-1-2) was built in the late 1950s to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around , while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude of 2,000 km, about one-third of the Earth radius, radius of Earth and near the beginning of the Van Allen radiation belt#Inner belt, inner Van Allen radiation belt. The term ''LEO region'' is used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. No human spaceflights other than the lunar missions of the Apollo program (1968-1972) have gone beyond L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in United States order of precedence, order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, airlift, rapid global mobility, Strategic bombing, global strike, and command and control. The United States Department of the Air Force, Department of the Air Force, which serves as the USAF's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
