N-1 Rocket
The N1 (from , "Carrier Rocket"; Cyrillic: En (Cyrillic), Н1) was a super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to deliver payloads beyond low Earth orbit. The N1 was the Soviet Union, Soviet counterpart to the US Saturn V and was intended to enable crewed travel to the Moon and beyond, with studies beginning as early as 1959. Its first stage, Block A, was the most powerful multistage rocket, rocket stage ever flown for over 50 years, with the record standing until SpaceX Starship, Starship's SpaceX Starship integrated flight test 1, first integrated flight test. However, each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed in flight, with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff. Adverse characteristics of the large cluster of thirty engines and its complex fuel and oxidizer feeder systems were not revealed earlier in development because static test firings had not been conducted. The N1-L3 version was designed to compete wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Super Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle
A super heavy-lift launch vehicle is a rocket that can lift to low Earth orbit a "super heavy payload", which is defined as more than by the United States and as more than by Russia. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, exceeding that of the heavy-lift launch vehicle, heavy-lift launch vehicle classification. Only 14 such payloads were successfully launched before 2022: 12 as part of the Apollo program before 1972 and two Energia (rocket), Energia launches, in 1987 and 1988. Most planned crewed Lunar mission, lunar and Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary missions depend on these launch vehicles. Several super heavy-lift launch vehicle concepts were produced in the 1960s, including the Sea Dragon (rocket), Sea Dragon. During the Space Race, the Saturn V and N1 (rocket), N1 were built by the United States and Soviet Union, respectively. After the Saturn V's successful Apollo program and the N1's failures, the Soviets' Energia launched twi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
RD-58
The RD-58 (, GRAU index: 11D58) is a rocket engine, developed in the 1960s by OKB-1, now RKK Energia. The project was managed by Mikhail Melnikov, and it was based on the previous S1.5400 which was the first staged combustion engine in the world. The engine was initially created to power the Block D stage of the Soviet Union's abortive N1 rocket. Derivatives of this stage are now used as upper stages on some Proton and Zenit rockets. An alternative version of the RD-58 chamber, featuring a shorter nozzle, was used as the N1's roll-control engine. The RD-58 uses LOX as the oxidizer and RG-1 as fuel in an oxidizer rich staged combustion cycle. It features a single gimbaled chamber, radial centrifugal pumps with auxiliary booster pumps, and an oxygen-rich preburner. Recent modifications include a lightweight carbon-composite nozzle extender developed by NPO Iskra. The Buran spacecraft used two of an evolution of the RD-58M, called 17D12, as its main orbital correction engi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lunar Orbit
In astronomy and spaceflight, a lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is an orbit by an object around Earth's Moon. In general these orbits are not circular. When farthest from the Moon (at apoapsis) a spacecraft is said to be at apolune, apocynthion, or aposelene. When closest to the Moon (at periapsis) it is said to be at perilune, pericynthion, or periselene. These derive from names or epithets of the moon goddess. Lunar orbit insertion (LOI) is an orbit insertion maneuver used to achieve lunar orbit. Low lunar orbit (LLO) is an orbit below altitude. These have a period of about 2 hours. They are of particular interest in the exploration of the Moon, but suffer from gravitational perturbations that make most unstable, and leave only a few orbital trajectories possible for indefinite '' frozen orbits''. These would be useful for long-term stays in LLO. Perturbation effects and low orbits Most lunar low orbits below 100 km (60 mi) are unstable. Gravitationa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Trans-lunar Injection
A trans-lunar injection (TLI) is a propulsive maneuver, which is used to send a spacecraft to the Moon. Typical lunar transfer trajectories approximate Hohmann transfers, although low-energy transfers have also been used in some cases, as with the Hiten probe. For short duration missions without significant perturbations from sources outside the Earth-Moon system, a fast Hohmann transfer is typically more practical. A spacecraft performs TLI to begin a lunar transfer from a low circular parking orbit around Earth. The large TLI burn, usually performed by a chemical rocket engine, increases the spacecraft's velocity, changing its orbit from a circular low Earth orbit to a highly eccentric orbit. As the spacecraft begins coasting on the lunar transfer arc, its trajectory approximates an elliptical orbit about the Earth with an apogee near to the radius of the Moon's orbit. The TLI burn is sized and timed to precisely target the Moon as it revolves around the Earth. The bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lunar Orbit Rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a lunar lander travel to lunar orbit. The lunar lander then independently descends to the surface of the Moon, while the main spacecraft remains in lunar orbit. After completion of the mission there, the lander returns to lunar orbit to space rendezvous, rendezvous and re-docking and berthing of spacecraft, dock with the main spacecraft, then is discarded after transfer of crew and payload. Only the main spacecraft returns to Earth. Lunar orbit rendezvous was first proposed in 1919 by Russian engineer Yuri Kondratyuk, as the most economical way of sending a human on a round-trip journey to the Moon. The most famous example involved Project Apollo's command and service module (CSM) and lunar module (LM), where they were both sent to a translunar flight in a single rocket ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Apollo Program
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in space. It was conceived in 1960 as a three-person spacecraft during President Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to United States Congress, Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third American human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo. Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
SpaceX Starship Integrated Flight Test 1
Starship flight test 1 was the maiden flight of the integrated SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. SpaceX performed the flight test on April 20, 2023. The prototype vehicle was destroyed less than four minutes after lifting off from the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. The vehicle became the most powerful rocket ever flown, breaking the half-century-old record held by the Soviet Union's N1 rocket. The launch was the first "integrated flight test," meaning it was the first time that the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft flew together as a fully integrated Starship launch vehicle. The launch was part of SpaceX's Starship development program, which follows an iterative and incremental approach involving frequent, and often destructive, test flights of prototype vehicles. Before the launch, SpaceX officials said they would measure the mission's success "by how much we can learn" and that various planned mission events "are not required for a successful test" ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
SpaceX Starship
Starship is a two-stage fully reusable launch vehicle, reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. On 20 April 2023, with the Starship flight test 1, first Integrated Flight Test, Starship became the most massive and most powerful vehicle ever to fly. SpaceX has developed Starship with the intention of lowering launch costs using economies of scale. SpaceX aims to achieve this by Fully reusable orbital launch vehicle, reusing both rocket stages by catching them with the launch and integration tower, increasing payload mass to orbit, increasing launch frequency, Mass production, mass-manufacturing the rockets and General-purpose technology, adapting it to a wide range of space missions. Starship is the latest project in SpaceX's SpaceX reusable launch system development program, reusable launch system development program and SpaceX Mars colonization program, plan to colonize Mars. Starship's two stages are the SpaceX Super Hea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Multistage Rocket
A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage is attached alongside another stage. The result is effectively two or more rockets stacked on top of or attached next to each other. Two-stage rockets are quite common, but rockets with as many as five separate stages have been successfully launched. By jettisoning stages when they run out of propellant, the mass of the remaining rocket is decreased. Each successive stage can also be optimized for its specific operating conditions, such as decreased atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes. This ''staging'' allows the thrust of the remaining stages to more easily accelerate the rocket to its final velocity and height. In serial or tandem staging schemes, the first stage is at the bottom and is usually the largest, the second stage and subse ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period (Lunar month#Synodic month, lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days. This is the product of Earth's gravitation having tidal forces, tidally pulled on the Moon until one part of it stopped rotating away from the near side of the Moon, near side, making always the same lunar surface face Earth. Conversley, the gravitational pull of the Moon, on Earth, is the main driver of Earth's tides. In geophysical definition of planet, geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is , roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is the List of Solar System objects by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet Union, it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country by area, extending across Time in Russia, eleven time zones and sharing Geography of the Soviet Union#Borders and neighbors, borders with twelve countries, and the List of countries and dependencies by population, third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, economy were Soviet-type economic planning, highly centralized. As a one-party state go ... [...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]   |