A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft A spacecraft is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and space tourism. Spacecraft and space travel are common themes in works of science fiction with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic Telerobotics is the area of robotics concerned with the control of robots from a distance, chiefly using wireless connections , "tethered" connections, or the Internet. It is a combination of two major subfields, teleoperation and telepresence control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe A space probe is a scientific space exploration mission in which a robotic spacecraft leaves the gravity well of Earth and approaches the Moon or enters interplanetary or interstellar space ; The space agencies of the USSR (now Russia and Ukraine), the United States, the European Union, Japan, India and China have in the aggregate launched probes. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a human crew and possibly passengers. This makes it unlike robotic space probes or remotely-controlled satellites. Human spaceflight is sometimes called manned spaceflight, a term now deprecated by major space agencies in favor of its gender-neutral alternative operation, due to lower cost and lower risk factors. In addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows. Because Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it never or the vicinity of Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass slightly less than one-thousandth of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Together, these are too hostile for human survival, given current technology. Outer planets such as Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus the Babylonian Ninurta and to the Hindu Shani. Saturn's symbol represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ♄), Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Cronus (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter). Though it is visible to the naked eye like the five classical planets, it was never recognized as a planet, and Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in our Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and not as dense. On average, Neptune are too distant to reach with current crewed spaceflight technology, so telerobotic probes are the only way to explore them.

Many artificial satellites In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavor. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon are robotic spacecraft, as are many landers A lander is a spacecraft which descends toward and comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body. For bodies with atmospheres, the landing is called atmospheric reentry and the lander descends as a re-entry vehicle. In these cases landers may employ aerobraking and parachutes to slow down, often with small landing rockets which fire just and rovers A rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other astronomical body. Some rovers have been designed to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots. Rovers usually arrive at the planetary surface on a lander-style spacecraft.

History

The first space mission, Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 Russian: "Спутник-1" Russian pronunciation: [ˈsputnʲɪk], "Satellite-1", ПС-1 ) was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, and was the first in a series of satellites collectively known as the Sputnik program, was an artificial satellite put into Earth orbit by the USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik IPA: [sɐˈjʊs sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɪəlʲɪˈstʲiʨɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpʊblʲɪk] , abbreviated СССР, SSSR), informally known as the Soviet Union ( on 4 October 1957. On 3 November 1957, the USSR orbited Sputnik 2 Sputnik 2 was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. Sputnik 2 was a 4-meter (13 foot) high cone-shaped capsule with a base diameter of 2 meters (6.6 feet). It contained several compartments for radio transmitters, a telemetry system, a programming unit, a, the first to carry a living animal into space – a dog Laika was a Soviet space dog (c. 1954–November 3, 1957) who became the first animal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital death. The technology to deorbit had not yet been developed, so there was no expectation for survival. Little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living things at the time Laika's mission was launched. Some.

The USA achieved its first successful space probe launch with the orbit of Explorer 1 Explorer 1 was the first Earth satellite of the United States as part of the program for the International Geophysical Year and in response to the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. It was launched on 31 January 1958 at 03:48 UTC atop the first Juno booster from LC-26 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. It was the first spacecraft on 31 January 1958. Explorer 1 weighed less than 14 kilograms compared to 83.6 kg and 508.3 kg for Sputniks 1 and 2 respectively. Nonetheless, Explorer 1 detected a narrow band of radiation surrounding the Earth, named the Van Allen belts The Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energetic charged particles around Earth, which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field. This field is not uniformly distributed around the Earth. On the sunward side, it is compressed because of the solar wind, while on the other side it is elongated to around three earth radii. This creates a cavity after the scientist whose equipment detected it.^{[citation needed]}

Only seven other countries have successfully launched orbital missions using their own vehicles: France (1965), Japan (1970), China (1970), the United Kingdom (1971), India (1981), Israel (1988).

Most American ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language space probe missions have been coordinated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is located in the City of La Canada Flintridge near the northern border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of, and European missions by the European Space Operations Centre The European Space Operations Centre is responsible for controlling ESA satellites and space probes. The centre is located in Darmstadt, Germany. It is Mission Control for most of the space projects of the ESA. ESOC also houses the Ground Facilities Control Centre (GFCC) that is responsible for remote operation of the ESTRACK network of Ground, part of the European Space Agency The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states. Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about €3.6 billion in 2009 (ESA). ESA has conducted relatively fewer space exploration Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft. While the observation of objects in space, known as astronomy, predates reliable recorded history, it was the development of large liquid-fueled rocket engines missions in the past (one example is the Giotto mission Giotto was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency, intended to fly by and study Halley's Comet. On 13 March 1986, the mission succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. The spacecraft was named after the medieval Italian painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301, which encountered comet A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma , and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles, ranging from a few Halley Halley's Comet or Comet Halley is the most famous of the periodic comets, and is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. Many comets with long orbital periods may appear brighter and more spectacular, but Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye, and thus, the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a), but have launched several interplanetary spacecraft in recent years (e.g. Rosetta space probe Rosetta is a European Space Agency-led robotic spacecraft mission launched in 2004, intended to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta consists of two main elements: the Rosetta space probe and the Philae lander. The spacecraft will also flyby and examine two asteroids on its way to the comet, Mars Express Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency . The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was designed and built. However "Express&, Venus Express Venus Express is the first Venus exploration mission of the European Space Agency. Launched in November 2005, it arrived at Venus in April 2006 and has been continuously sending back science data from its polar orbit around Venus. Equipped with seven science instruments, the main objective of the mission is the long term observation of the). ESA has, however, launched many spacecraft to carry out astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere (such as the cosmic background radiation). It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the formation and development of the universe, and is a collaborator with NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an Executive Branch agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006 NASA's self-described mission statement is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and on the Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. 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. There have been many successful Russian Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal space missions. There have also been a few Japanese, Chinese and Indian The Indian Space Research Organisation is the primary body for space research under the control of the Government of India, and one of the leading space research organizations in the world. It was established in its modern form in 1969 as a result of coordinated efforts initiated earlier. Taking into consideration its budget, it is probably one of missions.^{[citation needed]}

Design

In spacecraft design, the United States Air Force The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare, space warfare, and cyberwarfare branch of the U.S. armed forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947. It is the most recent branch considers a vehicle to consist of the mission payload In military aircraft or space exploration, the payload is the carrying capacity of an aircraft or space ship, including cargo, munitions, scientific instruments or experiments. External fuel, when optionally carried, is also considered part of the payload and the bus (or platform). The bus provides physical structure, thermal control, electrical power, attitude control and telemetry, tracking and commanding.^[1]

JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is located in the City of La Canada Flintridge near the northern border of Pasadena. JPL is managed by the nearby California Institute of divides the "flight system" of a spacecraft into subsystems.^[2] These include:

Structure

This is the physical backbone structure. It:

• provides overall mechanical integrity of the spacecraft
• ensures spacecraft components are supported and can withstand launch loads

Data handling

This is sometimes referred to as the command and data subsystem. It is often responsible for:

• command sequence storage
• maintaining the spacecraft clock
• collecting and reporting spacecraft telemetry data (e.g. spacecraft health)
• collecting and reporting mission data (e.g. photographic images)

Attitude and articulation control

This system is responsible for the spacecraft's orientation in space (attitude) and the positioning of movable parts (articulation). Attitude and articulation are controlled in order to:

• point an antenna at Earth for communications
• point onboard instruments for collection of data (possibly in some other direction)
• adjust for the heating effects of sunlight
• provide guidance during propulsive maneuvers

Telecommunications

Components in the telecommunications subsystem include radio antennas, transmitters and receivers. These may be used to communicate with ground stations on Earth, or with other spacecraft.

Electrical power

The supply of electric power on spacecraft come from photovoltaic A photovoltaic array is a linked collection of photovoltaic modules, which are in turn made of multiple interconnected solar cells. By their modularity, they are able to be configured to supply most loads (solar) cells or from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator A radioisotope thermoelectric generator is an electrical generator that obtains its power from radioactive decay. In such a device, the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material is converted into electricity by the Seebeck effect using an array of thermocouples. Other components of the subsystem include batteries for storing power and distribution circuitry that connects components to the power sources.

Temperature control and protection from the environment

Spacecraft are often protected from temperature fluctuations with insulation. Some spacecraft use mirrors and sunshades for additional protection from solar heating. They also often need shielding from micrometeoroids A micrometeoroid is a tiny meteoroid; a small particle of rock in space, usually weighing less than a gram. A micrometeor or micrometeorite is such a particle that enters the Earth's atmosphere or falls to Earth and orbital debris.

Propulsion

Mechanical devices

Mechanical components often need to be moved for deployment after launch or prior to landing. In addition to the use of motors, many one-time movements are controlled by pyrotechnic Pyrotechnics is the science of materials capable of undergoing self-contained and self-sustained exothermic chemical reactions for the production of heat, light, gas, smoke and/or sound. Pyrotechnics include not only the manufacture of fireworks but items such as safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts and fasteners, and components of the devices.

Control

Robotic spacecraft use telemetry Telemetry is a technology that allows remote measurement and reporting of information. The word is derived from Greek roots tele = remote, and metron = measure. Systems that need external instructions and data to operate require the counterpart of telemetry, telecommand to radio back to Earth acquired data and vehicle status information. Although generally referred to as "remotely-controlled" or "telerobotic", the earliest orbital spacecraft - such as Sputnik 1 and Explorer 1 - did not receive control signals from Earth. Soon after these first spacecraft, command systems were developed to allow remote control from the ground. Increased autonomy Autonomous robots are robots which can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. Many kinds of robots have some degree of autonomy. Different robots can be autonomous in different ways. A high degree of autonomy is particularly desirable in fields such as space exploration, cleaning floors, mowing lawns, is important for distant probes where the light travel time prevents rapid decision and control from Earth. Newer probes such as Cassini-Huygens Cassini–Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA/ASI robotic spacecraft mission currently studying the planet Saturn and its many natural satellites. The spacecraft consists of two main elements: the NASA-designed and -constructed Cassini orbiter, named for the Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, and the ESA-developed Huygens probe, named and the Mars Exploration Rovers NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission , is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the sending of the two rovers — MER-A Spirit and MER-B Opportunity — to explore the Martian surface and geology are highly autonomous and use on-board computers to operate independently for extended periods of time.

List of space probes

This is a condensed version of the more detailed List of Solar System probes This is a list of all space probes that have left Earth orbit, organised by their planned destination. Also included are such probes that were launched with that intention but failed. This includes planetary probes, lunar probes, solar probes and probes to asteroids and comets. Flybys that were incidental to the main purpose of the mission are.

Lunar probes

• Luna program — USSR Lunar exploration (1959–1976).
• Ranger program — US Lunar hard-landing probes (1961–1965).
• Zond program — USSR Lunar exploration (1964–1970).
• Surveyor program — US Lunar soft-landing probe (1966–1968).
• Lunar Orbiter program — US Lunar orbital (1966–1967).
• Lunokhod program — USSR Lunar Rover probes (1970–1973).
• Muses-A mission (Hiten and Hagoromo) — Japanese Lunar orbital and hard-landing probes (1990–1993).
• Clementine — US Lunar orbital (1998).
• Lunar Prospector — US Lunar orbital (1998–1999).
• Smart 1 — European Lunar orbital (2003).
• SELENE — Japanese lunar orbiter (2007).
• Chang'e 1 — Chinese lunar orbiter (2007).
• Chandrayaan 1 — Indian lunar orbiter (2008).
• Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — US Lunar orbiter (2009).
• LCROSS — US Lunar hard-landing probe (2009).
• Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory — US Lunar orbiters, to be launched 2011

Mars probes

• Zond program — failed USSR flyby probe
• Mars probe program — USSR orbiters and landers
• Viking program — Two NASA orbiters and landers (1974)
• Phobos program — Failed USSR orbiters and Phobos landers
• Mars Pathfinder — NASA lander and rover (1997)
• Mars Surveyor '98 program (Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander) — Failed NASA probes
• Mars Global Surveyor - NASA orbiter
• Mars Odyssey — NASA orbiter, reached Mars on October 24, 2001
• Mars Observer — failed NASA Mars orbiter
• Mars Express (Mars Express Orbiter and Beagle 2) — European orbiter and failed lander 2003
• Mars Exploration Rovers — NASA rovers (2004)
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — NASA orbiter, entered Martian orbit March 10, 2006
• Phoenix — NASA lander, landed May 25, 2008
• Mars Science Laboratory — NASA rover, to be launched 2011

Venus probes

• Venera program — USSR Venus orbiter and lander
• Vega program — USSR mission to Venus and Comet Halley
• Pioneer Venus project — US Venus orbiter
• Magellan probe — US Venus orbiter
• Venus Express — ESA probe sent for the observation of the Venus's weather in 2005.

Gas giant probes

• Pioneer program — US Jupiter and Saturn flybys
• Voyager program — US Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune flyby and study of interstellar medium
• Galileo probe — US Jupiter orbiter and atmosphere probe
• Cassini-Huygens — US-European Saturn orbiter and Titan lander Huygens (1997–present)

Comet and asteroid probes

• International Cometary Explorer — pass through gas tail of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner (1985)
• Giotto mission — European — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
• Vega 1 & 2 — USSR — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
• Sakigake probe — Japanese — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
• Suisei probe — Japanese — flyby of comet 1P/Halley (1986)
• NEAR Shoemaker — US — asteroid lander, launched 1996
• Deep Space 1 — US — comet 19P/Borrelly and asteroid flyby, 1998–2000
• Stardust probe — US — comet 81P/Wild flyby and sample return, launched 1999, flied-by 2004, returned January 15, 2006
• CONTOUR — US — comet flyby mission (comets 2P, 73P and 6P); launch failure in 2003
• Hayabusa — Japanese — asteroid orbiter, lander and sample return, launched 2003
• Rosetta — European — comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko orbiter and lander (Philae); launched 2004
• Deep Impact — successful US comet 9P/Tempel impactor, launched 2005
• Deep Impact/EPOXI — US — comet 103P/Hartley flyby (extended Deep Impact mission) — 2010
• Stardust/NExT — US — comet 9P/Tempel flyby (extended Stardust mission) — 2011

Solar observation probes

• Ulysses — Solar particles and fields
• Genesis — First solar wind sample return mission, 2001–2004 (crash)
• Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) — launched October 19, 2008.
• Advanced Composition Explorer — Solar particles and fields observation at Earth-Sun L₁ point
• STEREO — Pair of probes in solar orbits providing 3D observations of sun

Other solar system probes

• Zond program — USSR flyby missions to the Moon, Venus, and Mars
• Mariner program — US Mercury, Venus and Mars flybys
• MESSENGER — US Mercury orbiter, launched 2004
• New Horizons — US launched on January 19, 2006 — First probe to visit Pluto (in July 2015)
• Dawn — US launched on September 27, 2007 — First probe to visit Vesta and Ceres (in 2011 and 2015 respectively)

See also

• Unmanned resupply spacecraft
• Geosynchronous satellite
• Human versus robotic spaceflight
• Manned space mission
• Satellite
• Space exploration
• Timeline of Solar System exploration
• Space observatory

References

1. ^ "Air University Space Primer, Chapter 10 - Spacecraft Design, Structure And Operation". USAF. http://space.au.af.mil/primer/spacecraft_design_structure_ops.pdf.
2. ^ "Chapter 11. Typical Onboard Systems". JPL. http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf11-1.html.

External links

• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Russia's unmanned moon missions

Categories: Spaceflight | Embedded systems | Unmanned spacecraft

See Also:

• Spacecraft: Encyclopedia
• Soyuz Spacecraft: Encyclopedia
• Dawn (Spacecraft): Encyclopedia
• Galileo Spacecraft: Encyclopedia
• Lander (Spacecraft): Encyclopedia

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