Robotic spacecraft Totally Explained

Everything about Robotic Spacecraft totally explained

A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that's usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost and lower risk factors. In addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus or the vicinity of Jupiter are too hostile for human survival, given current technology. Outer planets such as Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are too distant to reach with current crewed spaceflight technology, so telerobotic probes are the only way to explore them.
Many artificial satellites are robotic spacecraft, as are many landers and rovers.

History

The first space mission, Sputnik 1, was an artificial satellite put into Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. On 3 November 1957, the Soviets orbited Sputnik 2, the first to carry a living animal into space – a dog.
   The United States achieved its first successful space probe launch with the orbit of Explorer 1 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 after the scientist whose equipment detected it.
   Only six other countries have successfully launched missions using their own vehicles: France (1965), Japan (1970), China (1970), the United Kingdom (1971), India (1981) and Israel (1988).
   Most American space probe missions have been coordinated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and European missions by the European Space Operations Centre, part of the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA has conducted relatively fewer space exploration missions in the past (one example is the Giotto mission, which encountered comet Halley), but have launched several interplanetary spacecraft in recent years (for example Rosetta space probe, Mars Express, Venus Express). ESA has, however, launched many spacecraft to carry out astronomy, and is a collaborator with NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope. There have been many successful Russian space missions. There have also been a few Japanese, Chinese and Indian missions.

Design

In spacecraft design, the United States Air Force considers a vehicle to consist of the mission payload and the bus (or platform). The bus provides physical structure, thermal control, electrical power, attitude control and telemetry, tracking and commanding.

Control

Robotic spacecraft use telemetry 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 -- didn't receive control signals from Earth. Soon after these first spacecraft, command systems were developed to allow remote control from the ground. Increased autonomy is important for distant probes where the light travel time prevents rapid decision and control from Earth. Newer probes such as Cassini-Huygens and the Mars Exploration Rovers are highly autonomous and use on-board computers to operate independently for extended periods of time.

List of space probes

ť This is a condensed version of the more detailed List of Solar System probes.

Lunar probes

Luna program — Soviet Lunar exploration (1959–1976).
Ranger program — US Lunar hard-landing probes (1961–1965).
Zond program — Soviet Lunar exploration (1964–1970).
Surveyor program — US Lunar soft-landing probe (1966–1968).
Lunar Orbiter program — US Lunar orbital (1966–1967).
Lunokhod program — Soviet 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).

Mars probes

Zond program — failed Soviet flyby probe

Mars probe program — Soviet orbiters and landers

Viking program — Two US orbiters and landers (1974)

Phobos program — Failed Soviet orbiters and Phobos landers

Mars Pathfinder — Lander and wheeled robot (1997)

Mars Surveyor '98 program (Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander) — Failed US probes

Mars Global Surveyor - US Orbiter

Mars Odyssey — US orbiter

Mars Observer — failed US Mars orbiter

Mars Express (Mars Express Orbiter and Beagle 2) — European orbiter and failed lander 2003

Mars Exploration Rovers — US rovers (2004)

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — US, launched 2005

Phoenix — US, launched August 3, 2007

Mars Science Laboratory — US, to be launched 2009

Venus probes

Venera program — Soviet Venus orbiter and lander

Vega program — Soviet 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 space

Galileo probe — US Jupiter orbiter and atmosphere probe

Cassini-Huygens — US-European Saturn orbiter and Titan lander Huygens (1997–present)

Comet and asteroid probes

Giotto mission — European flyby of Comet Halley (1986)

Sakigake probe — Japanese flyby of Comet Halley (1986)

Suisei probe — Japanese flyby of Comet Halley (1986)

NEAR Shoemaker — US asteroid lander, launched 1996

Deep Space 1 — US comet/asteroid flyby, 1998–2000

Stardust probe — US comet flyby and sample return, launched 1999, returned January 15, 2006

CONTOUR — US comet flyby mission; launch failure in 2003

Hayabusa — Japanese asteroid orbiter, lander and sample return, launched 2003

Rosetta — European comet orbiter and lander (Philae); launched 2004

Deep Impact — successful US comet impactor, launched 2005

Solar observation probes

Ulysses — Solar particles and fields

Genesis — First solar wind sample return mission, 2001–2004 (crash)

Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) — scheduled to launch in the summer of 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 — Soviet flyby missions to the Moon, Venus, and Mars

Mariner program — US Mercury, Venus and Mars flybys

MESSENGER — US Mercury orbiter, launched 2004

New Horizons — launched on January 19, 2006 — First probe to visit Pluto (in July 2015)

Dawn (spacecraft) — launched on September 27, 2007 — First probe to visit Ceres and Vesta (in 2011 and 2009 respectively)Further Information

Get more info on 'Robotic Spacecraft'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://robotic_spacecraft.totallyexplained.com">Robotic spacecraft Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.