Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A low Earth orbit ( LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. [1] Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around 800 km (500 mi), [2] while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO ...
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where ...
List of Space Shuttle missions. Launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on 12 April 1981 at Pad 39A for mission STS-1. The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 ...
The Space Shuttle orbiter is the spaceplane component of the Space Shuttle, a partially reusable orbital spacecraft system that was part of the discontinued Space Shuttle program. Operated from 1981 to 2011 by NASA, [1] the U.S. space agency, this vehicle could carry astronauts and payloads into low Earth orbit, perform in-space operations ...
STS-41-C (formerly STS-13) was NASA 's eleventh Space Shuttle mission, and the fifth mission of Space Shuttle Challenger. The launch, which took place on April 6, 1984, marked the first direct ascent trajectory for a Space Shuttle mission. During the mission, Challenger ' s crew captured and repaired the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission ...
During each orbit, the space probe captured radar data while the spacecraft was closest to the surface, and then transmit it back to Earth as it moved away from Venus. This maneuver required extensive use of the reaction wheels to rotate the spacecraft as it imaged the surface for 37-minutes and as it pointed toward Earth for two hours.
Earth's rotation. Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polaris, Earth turns counterclockwise . The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North ...
In orbital mechanics, the beta angle ( ) is the angle between a satellite 's orbital plane around Earth and the geocentric position of the Sun. [1] The beta angle determines the percentage of time that a satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO) spends in direct sunlight, absorbing solar radiation. [2] For objects launched into orbit, the solar beta ...