Mission mans-legacy-on-space

1. Mission Mans Legacy on space

2.  The Exploration of Space
 NASA has a long legacy of space exploration. In the
decades since its founding, the space agency has
landed rovers on Mars, sampled the atmosphere of
Jupiter, explored Saturn and Mercury - and even
landed humans on the moon - to name a few.
Some missions, like the Kepler planet-hunting
observatory, are relatively new, and only time will tell if
they join the ranks of NASA's finest flights.
Here's our subjective list of 10 NASA missions that
have already earned their spot in the space mission
hall of fame.

3.  Pioneer
 Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, launched in 1972 and
1973, respectively, were the first spacecraft to visit the
solar system's most photogenic gas giants, Jupiter
and Saturn. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to travel
through the solar system's asteroid belt, a field of
orbiting rocks between Mars and Jupiter. Then about
a year-and-a-half after its launch, the spacecraft
made the first flyby of the planet Jupiter. It took
stunning up-close photos of the Great Red Spot and
the wide swaths of red that band the planet. About a
year later, Pioneer 11 flew by Jupiter, and then moved
on to Saturn, where it discovered a couple of
previously unknown small moons around the planet,
and a new ring. Both probes have stopped sending
data, and are continuing out on their one-way
voyages beyond the solar system.

4.  Voyager
 Shortly after the Pioneers made their flybys, the
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes followed. They
made many important discoveries about Jupiter and
Saturn, including rings around Jupiter and the
presence of volcanism on Jupiter's moon, Io. Voyager
went on to make the first flybys of Uranus, where it
discovered 10 new moons, and Neptune, where it
found that Neptune actually weighs less than
astronomers thought. Both Voyager crafts have
enough power to keep transmitting radio signals until
at least 2025, and are now exploring the very edge of
the solar system and beginning of interstellar space.
Voyager 2 is currently the farthest man-made object
from Earth, at more than a hundred times the distance
from the Earth to the sun, and more than twice as far
as Pluto.

5.  WMAP
 The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP),
launched in 2001, may not be as well-known, but it
measures with unprecedented accuracy the
temperature of the radiation left over from the Big
Bang. By mapping out the fluctuations in the so-called
cosmic microwave background radiation, the
spacecraft has heralded a leap forward in
cosmological theories about the nature and origin of
the universe. Among other revelations, the data from
WMAP revealed a much more precise estimate for
the age of the universe ? 13.7 billion years ? and
confirmed that about 95 percent of it is composed of
poorly understood things called dark matter and dark

6.  Spitzer
 Another spacecraft with a profound effect on
cosmology and astrophysics is the Spitzer Space
Telescope, which observed the heavens through
infrared light. This light, which has a longer
wavelength than visual light, is mostly blocked by
Earth's atmosphere. In addition to taking gorgeous
photos of galaxies, nebulae and stars, the telescope
has made numerous groundbreaking scientific
discoveries. In 2005 Spitzer became the first
telescope to detect light from extrasolar planets (most
of these distant worlds are detected only through
secondary, gravitational effects on their suns). In
another observation, astronomers think the telescope
may have even captured light from some of the first
stars born in the universe.

7.  Spirit & Opportunity
 Intended for just a 90-day mission, these workhorse
Mars rovers have far outdone themselves, and are
still chugging away on the red planet more than five
years after landing. Spirit and Opportunity, the twin
Mars Exploration Rovers, landed on opposite sides of
the planet in January 2004. Since then, they have
been traveling all over the surface, poking into craters
and roving over unexplored hills. Among their major
finds is evidence that the surface of Mars once had
liquid water. (A tip of the hat to Sojourner rover, which
brought full-color close-ups of Mars in 1997, just as
the Internet was becoming wildly popular, thereby
earning a special place in the hearts of millions who
enjoyed unprecedented access to NASA mission
photos.)

8.  Cassini-Huygens
 This joint NASA/ESA spacecraft, launched in
1997, reached its destination, Saturn, in 2004.
Since then it has been in orbit around the ringed
world, taking one stunning snapshot after another
of the planets rings, moons and weather. The
Hugyens probe separated from Cassini and made
a special trip to the moon Titan, where it
descended through the atmosphere and landed
on solid ground in 2005. Though previous
spacecraft have visited Saturn, Cassini is the first
to orbit it and study the system in detail.

9.  Chandra
 Since 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has
been scanning the skies in X-ray light, looking at
some of the most distant and bizarre
astronomical events. Because Earth's pesky
atmosphere blocks out most X-rays, astronomers
couldn't view the universe in this high-energy,
short-wavelength light until they sent Chandra up
to space. The observatory has such high-
resolution mirrors, it can see X-ray sources 100
times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope.
Among other firsts, Chandra showed scientists
the first glimpse of the crushed star left over after
a supernova when it observed the remnant
Cassiopeia A.

10.  Viking
 When NASA's Viking 1 probe touched-down on
Mars in July 1976, it was the first time a man-
made object had soft-landed on the red planet.
(Though the Soviet Mars 2 and 3 probes did land
on the surface, they failed upon landing). The
Viking 1 lander also holds the title of longest-
running Mars surface mission, with a total
duration of 6 years and 116 days. The spacecraft
also sent the first color pictures back from the
Martian surface, showing us what that mysterious
red dot looks like from the ground for the first
time.

11.  Hubble
 The most-loved of all NASA spacecraft, the
Hubble Space Telescope has name recognition
around the world. Its photos have changed the
way everyday people figure themselves into the
cosmos. The observatory has also radically
changed science, making breakthroughs on
astronomical issues too numerous to count. By
finally sending up an optical telescope to peer at
the sky from beyond Earth's turbulent
atmosphere, NASA developed a tool that could
reveal stars, planets, nebulae and galaxies in all
their fully-detailed glory.

12.  Apollo
 NASA's best space science mission? The one
humans got to tag along on, of course! Not only
was sending a man to the moon monumental for
human history, but the Apollo trips were the first to
bring celestial stuff back to Earth and greatly
advanced our scientific understanding of the
moon. Before Apollo, many people weren't even
convinced the moon wasn't made out of cheese
(well? non-scientists at least). By studying the
moon up close and personal, and then carting?
loads of moon rocks home, the Apollo astronauts
gathered data that helped us learn how old the
moon is, what it's made out of, and even how it
might have begun.

13. History of Rocket
propulsion

14.  the date reporting the first use of
true rockets was in 1232. At this time, the
Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each
other. During the battle of Kai-Keng, the Chinese
repelled the Mongol invaders by a barrage of
"arrows of flying fire." These fire-arrows were a
simple form of a solid-propellant rocket.

16. The first rockets that were
used in modern rocketry were
invented by Dr. Robert
Goddard. For this he is
known as the Father of
Modern Rocketry. He created
the first successful liquid fuel
rocket, adding the nozzle
design that is so common
today.

18.  Rockets are now used for fireworks, weaponry,
ejection seats, launch vehicles for artificial
satellites, human spaceflight, and space
exploration. Chemical rockets are the most
common type of high power rocket, typically
creating a high speed exhaust by the combustion
of fuel with an oxidizer.
The first rocket which could fly high enough to
get into space was the V2 missile which was first
launched by Germany in 1942. The first rocket
which actually launched something into space
was used to launch Sputnik, the first satellite, on
October 4, 1957.

19. Hubble Space Telescope

21.  the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space
telescope that was launched into low Earth
orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although
not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the
largest and most versatile, and is well known as
both a vital research tool and a public relations
boon for astronomy. The space telescope was
named the Hubble Space Telescope, after
American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who
showed that the fuzzy patches of light in the night
sky were actually other galaxies, far distant from
our own, and went on to prove that the universe
was expanding.

22. Edwin Hubble