Team Indus, ISRO aim for January 26, 2018 to plant Tricolour on moon

The fledgeling Team Indus will tie up with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with the aim of hoisting India’s flag through an unmanned spacecraft on the lunar surface on January 26, 2018, the 69th Republic Day. Team Indus is a group of youngsters who are hedging their bets on winning the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize. Team Indus comprises about 100 people mostly engineers and are led by a visionary Rahul Narayan who in his earlier avatar was a software worker and calls himself a serial entrepreneur but who in 2010, when the Google Prize Lunar X Prize was almost closing, decided to take a shot at the moon.

Team Indus is the only Indian team in this Google-sponsored global effort. Narayan says they have personally explained the mission to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has extended his blessings to the young team. Since 2010, Narayan has collected a bunch youngsters mostly students fresh out of college who have made it their single minded desire to become the first private Indian company to reach the moon.

Team Indus has roped in angel investors like Nandan Nilekani and Ratan Tata and space sages like K Kasturirangan as advisors and have till date managed to garner some Rs 100 crore in funding for a total expected mission cost of about Rs 400 crore. Narayan confirms they have already spent the first one hundred crore. To make up for the thin experience in flying to distances as far as 400,000 km away the founders of Team Indus have recruited some two dozen retired hands from ISRO who provide the necessary brain that the young brawn ably provides.

Team Indus has just procured a launch services agreement with Antrix Corporation Ltd., the commercial arm of ISRO to source India’s highly reliable Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV. Rakesh Sasibhushan, Chairman Cum Managing Director, Antrix Corporation, Bengaluru confirms, “Yes we have signed a launch services agreement with Team Indus which essentially provides a PSLV launch for launching a lunar orbiter and lander sometime in the fourth quarter of 2017.”

This is for the very first time ISRO is making what it calls “a precious national resource in PSLV” available albeit at a still undisclosed cost to a private Indian company. As part of the Google Lunar X Prize competition which after an extension of two deadlines is likely to end by 2017 before which all the competing teams which number about three dozen have to kick off their moon shot.

As off now, one Israeli team and two American teams have procured launch contracts and are close contenders for the prize. Towards what Team Indus calls ‘Har Indian Ka Moonshot’ in the next 12 months it has to build from scratch a satellite that will lift off from India’s space port Sriharikota atop riding on the PSLV, the same then has to make a soft landing on the moon and then a rover will have to slip out

.

To finally win the prize the rules stipulate that the rover has to move 500 m on the lunar surface and should be able to beam back high definition images back to earth. Team Indus claims they are now among the top four contenders for the prize and they already bagged USD 1 million milestone prize from Google. This has buoyed their spirits and today among the half a dozen other serious contenders only Team Indus has a “verified contract” to launch on a highly reliable globally acclaimed rocket.

Vivek Raghavan, lead for technology at Team Indus also called Jedi Master (Tech) – bringing an aura of a Star Wars like setting – says, “As part of the Google Lunar X Prize, there are obviously many teams in the beginning. There are still 16 teams in the competition. But the number of teams that actually have a launch contract are very few. We’ve been ranked among the top 3 teams in the world in the competition.”

In contrast ISRO has been plodding along since 2008 with its much anticipated Chandrayaan-2 mission a massive exercise to indigenously make an orbiter, a soft lander and a rover that will be blasted into space according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister for Space Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office in the first quarter of 2018.

ISRO is hoping to deploy its heavy weight launcher the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) which has had a rather patchy record and was dubbed by ISRO as its ‘naughty boy’ for this prestigious mission. Chandrayaan-2 is a heavy weight over 3000 kg satellite in comparison Team Indus’s puny satellite weighing 600 kg baby, but with broadly similar goals. Truly a race between a truck and a Nano!

Rahul Narayan says ISRO and Team Indus are not competitors in the unfolding ‘Indian moon race’. He likens ‘Team Indus to be playing a T-20 cricket match as against ISRO playing full-fledged Test match with Chandrayaan-2’.

A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman, ISRO who in a statement to Team Indus said, “If you treat space as the new frontier, then who better than the next generation of people who bring in new innovative approaches. We want to see there is enough capacity to make use of the knowledge in India for the world market.”

For Team Indus, the launch window starts on December 28, 2017, the PSLV will inject the spacecraft into an orbit 880 km x 70,000 km around the Earth. The spacecraft will then undertake a soft land in Mare Imbrium, a region in the north-western hemisphere of the Moon.

Narayan adds, “We have a very young team and I must say we’ve got a bright bunch of folks here. We’ve managed to break down the problem to many pieces and till date we’ve done reasonably well.

“We’ve had a few failures, but I think we’ve had more success than failures. In addition to our young team, we obviously have several retired ISRO scientists who are architects of what we’re building today. It is a challenging task, but I think we set out to be able to build the spacecraft.”

But now that ISRO has positioned itself and given a green signal for Team Indus to use the PSLV a rocket that in its heritage has the 2008 Chandrayaan-1 launch can the upstart team from Bengaluru expect a cake walk to the rocket port.

When asked if ISRO was taking a risk by allowing an inexperienced player to launch on the PSLV, Sasibhushan, said, “Not really, all satellites that have to fly on the PSLV have to undergo a qualification test and we will ensure that the [Team Indus] satellite is worthy of flying on the PSLV and unless it passes all tests we will not be able to fly it in PSLV.”

In 2008, India fought and lost a marathon race to reach the moon against China when Chandrayaan-1 lost out to China’s maiden mission to the moon Chang’e-1, the Indian government never really pardoned ISRO for that loss of face. ISRO is still smarting on not becoming the first Asian nation to reach the lunar orbit so will it be large hearted to let an Indian start up once again take lead in placing India’s flag on the moon.

Space and Astronomy Around the World

Astronomy is a science that knows no borders. Everyone around the world can look up to the sky and see the Universe in front of them, providing the glare from city pollution doesn’t spoil the view. In the past scholars from around the world have theorised and pondered about our Earth and its position in the grand scheme of the universe. However, today many space and research programmes fulfilled still seem to be dominated by the original leaders of the space race, the Americans and Russians, but what other countries are making giant leaps in helping learning and exploring for mankind?

At the end of 2013 China successfully landed the Chang’e 3 lander on the surface of the Moon. This was the first soft-landed craft on the Moon since the Soviets landed Luna 24 in 1976. This catapulted China to the bronze medal position being only the third country to have achieved this feat. Not only that, China is also the third and final country to send people into space independently. In 2003, Yang Liwei became the first man in space who didn’t there in a Russian or American spacecraft. China is fast becoming a new world super power and is currently the largest exporter of goods with millions of various products labelled ‘Made in China’ hitting the shelves around the world. China making space probes and rovers perhaps does not come as a surprise considering the range of goods currently produced in the country. They seem to be currently aiming to take the lead in space exploration.

Another country recently making news with their place in space is India. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) locally called Mangalyann in November 2013. It is due to be in orbit of the Red Planet by the end of September this year. If this mission is successful, then ISRO joins an exclusive group of being only the fourth space agency to reach Mars (After Roscosmos, NASA and ESA). India has a fairly well-established launch capacity and has launched over 70 satellites. India’s vision is by 2025 to have increased their input into space exploration with perhaps manned space flight and planet exploration but also to increase communications for rural India. India has received some criticism in their budget allowances for space exploration. However the MOM project came in relatively inexpensively at a tenth of the NASA’s costs and it achieved something incredible that many other countries could only dream of doing. The Indian space program will not only help us internationally learn more about Mars and the space around us, but this event could inspire a new generation of rocket scientists and it should be something the country is proud of.

One of the smallest countries with its own launch capabilities is Israel. The Israel Space Agency (ISA) was formed in 1983 and by 1988 had launched its first satellite into space. It has since launched a further 12 satellites into orbit (nine of which were Ofeq series recconnaissance satellites). The Shavit is the launch vehicle used, which is a three stage launcher that can carry a payload up to 250kg. Most of the launches take place over the Mediterranean and are launched westwards initially, the opposite direction to the Earth’s directional orbit, as relations with neighbouring countries would not be helped by falling debris from a rocket launch. The Israeli space program also funds research programs on the ground, ranging from detecting near Earth objects to cosmic rays. Israel does not have the ability to send people into space, although Ilan Ramon an Israeli fighter pilot trained with NASA and became Israel’s first astronaut , on board the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. Tragically he lost his life alongside his crew members when the Shuttle was destroyed on re-entry.

Countries within Africa may not always be on the radar for astronomy and space programmes. However with a little help from other countries, Nigeria’s National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) has launched five satellites into orbit. The first satellite was built in the United Kingdom. Called NigeriaSat-1 and was used in monitoring the land for agricultural purposes. China has also helped launch a satellite for Nigeria in 2007 but this is no longer working. Nigeria too has faced criticism for spending money on satellites rather than on the people. However, these satellites will improve communication and information reaching more rural areas of the country, as well as helping monitor the land.

South Africa is leading the way with astronomical research in Africa with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) being established in 2010, it has two satellites in orbit, which their main focus is remote sensing and monitoring the ground. South Africa is also home to the largest optical telescope in Africa ,SALT (South African Large Telescope), which is used in the study of distant galaxies. Ethiopia have recently installed a telescope, 3000 metres above sea level in the Entoto Mountains, helped by the Ethiopian Space Science Society and funded by Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Alamoudi. At the end of 2013, Ghana announced plans of building a 32 metre telescope to help in the use of radio astronomy. In 2009, the concept of a united African Space Agency was suggested, but so far it remains just that. Individual countries within Africa need to best prioritise their funds and needs before attempting to take to the sky.

Chile is one of the wealthier countries within Central and Southern America and has a well-established base for observation. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) have the VLT (Very Large Telescope) based in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. This is one of the driest places on Earth perfect for clear skies. The ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) also makes the most of these dry conditions as it seeks to survey the coldest regions of space. However, both of these telescopes are organised and ran by countries mostly in Europe with ESO headquarters located in Germany. Some of the other countries in Latin America also have their space programmes. The Brazil Space Agency successfully launched their first rocket in 2004, with the first Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes travelling to space on board the Russian Soyuz in 2006. Pontes was originally due to be a mission specialist on a Space Shuttle mission, but following the Columbia tragedy in 2003, flights were halted and Pontes became a cosmonaut flying with the Russians instead. Mexico also has their own space agency formed in 2010. The agency plans to use and coordinate research conducted using the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT). The Mexican Space Agency has commissioned 3 satellites to be built and the first launched this summer to help improve mobile phone signal in Mexico. The MexSat satellites, although commissioned by Mexico are intended on being launched on board a Russian Proton M rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

Many countries around the world have an established space programme or research facilities dedicated to the world of astronomy, although countries with a larger gross domestic product obviously will have a larger budget to dedicate to the Science. International collaboration either within a continent or a wider area is the way to continue into space. Sharing resources and knowledge will help continue the adventure into space and only improve on knowledge gained. Regardless of budgets and partnerships, many countries are still keen on having and maintaining a presence in space. With new up comers pushing their way to the forefront, the new space race is set to continue and it should lead to an exciting and interesting competition.

Group consisting of David Evinshteyn, Gregor Hartmann, and Nick Nielsen

     The group discussed the (familiar) possibility of offering prizes to stimulate research, discovery, and achievement converging on spacefaring and interstellar goals. To make the pot big enough to be tempting, it was suggested that a large number of research universities might be persuaded to chip in a small portion of their endowment to create a new endowment independent of any one university, but which would be conferred upon the successful program in a competition for the pot of money. An alternative to university funding would be an appeal to wealthy donors whose names could be attached to long-term, large scale projects as a legacy and for prestige.

     The emphasis would be on science-based missions that would return significant data. Among the possibilities were discussed placing a radio telescope on the far side of the moon, in the shadow of Earth’s radio noise, and a mission to the focal point of Jupiter (which represents a more current-technology doable project than a mission to the focal point of the sun, at 542 AU). The far side of the moon has a great many craters, which might be used to create radio telescopes by laying down wire mesh in a properly-shaped crater. Such a project might begin with a smallish crater and work its way up to larger radio telescopes. Further research would be necessary to determine whether the focal point of Jupiter would be a worthwhile project in its potential returns, and whether it is technological feasible to station a probe there. It was suggested that a polar orbit around Jupiter might make this possible.

     It was also envisioned that a graduated series of missions, each more ambitious than the last, could continue to keep such a competition vital by always establishing new achievements. In order to spread the wealth around, a major project could be divided into distinct segments, individually the objects of competition — like defense department projects that keep major contractors in business by spreading around the building of major projects to more than one vendor. For example, a radio telescope on the far side of the moon could be divided into three segments: 1) the booster, 2), the lunar orbiter, and 3) the lander that would include the radio telescope itself.

     In order to make this attractive, and the focus of research that would involve not only interested individuals but would draw in entire university departments in a spirit both of competition and achievement, the successful competitor would be promised funding for their project that would be ongoing for a period of time sufficient for a significant portion of the careers of individuals involved. Investigators would have proprietary access to data from the project for a given period of time, as an inspiration for students to devote themselves to an project that could define their careers in science and engineering.

Out of This World! The Most Amazing Space Discoveries of 2016

2016 has been a bountiful year for space science. Before the calendar runs out, here's our list of the biggest space stories and events of the past 12 months.
There were monumental new discoveries, including the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, which gives scientists access to a whole new realm of information about cosmic events. This year, scientists also discovered a potentially habitable planet orbiting the star nearest to Earth's sun.

As always, there were also hurdles and setbacks. The ExoMars mission sent both an orbiter and a lander to the Red Planet, but the lander crashed into the planet's surface before it could begin its science mission. And multiple studies searching for signs of a particle that could explain mysterious dark matter turned up empty.

A planet around the nearest star to Earth's sun

The star Proxima Centauri lies just 4.2 light-years from Earth's sun — a stone's throw, cosmologically speaking. In August, scientists discovered a planet orbiting in Proxima Centauri's habitable zone, or the region where liquid water might exist on the planet's surface (and thus boosting the odds that life might have evolved there). This newly discovered planet, dubbed Proxima b, has a minimum mass of about 1.27 times Earth's mass, further increasing the possibility that this planet could be habitable.

Shortly after the discovery was announced, a group called Project Blue started fundraising to build a space telescope with the targeted mission of studying Proxima b and looking for signs of life there.

In April, the Breakthrough Foundation — whose board members include physicist Stephen Hawking, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and entrepreneur Yuri Milner — announced an initiative called Breakthrough Starshot, which will aim to send a microchip-size spacecraft to another star. With the discovery of Proxima b, the Starshot project organizers announced that they would target this newfound planet, and potentially search for signs of life. The spacecraft would be accelerated with a massive (and expensive) laser system, and would still take about 20 to 25 years to reach Proxima b.

Ice deposit on Mars is bigger than Lake Superior

A massive ice deposit spanning a region the size of New Mexico was discovered in Mars' mid-northern latitudes. The deposit lies between 3 and 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) below the Red Planet's surface, it's between 50 and 85 percent water (the rest is dirt), and its total volume is about the same as that of Lake Superior, which holds about 2,900 cubic miles (12,100 cubic kilometers) of water.

The ice deposit could be useful if humans eventually settle on Mars. The region where the deposit was found, called Utopia Planitia, could be easily accessible by spacecraft because it is relatively flat and low-lying. The ice deposit was discovered using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Hubble spies potential water plumes on Europa

The Hubble Space Telescope has spied what appear to be plumes of water erupting from the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This icy satellite may harbor a liquid water ocean deep below its surface, and scientists think that ocean could have the right ingredients for life. NASA is currently planning to send an orbiting probe to study Europa in the 2020s.

If Europa is indeed spewing water from its ocean into space, that opens up the door for an orbiting mission to sample the water (without having to drill into the ice or even land) and look for hints of biology there. The Hubble telescope had spotted a plume erupting from Europa in 2012, but that detection seemed like it might have been a rare outlier, because no plume activity was observed in the intervening years.

Tabby's Star saga continues

In 2011 and 2013, a distant star known as KIC 8462852 (also known as Tabby's Star) appeared to dip in brightness as seen from Earth. This kind of brightness change can occur when an object such as a planet passes in front of a star, but planets orbit their parent stars on a regular time loop, and the changes in brightness coming from Tabby's Star were highly irregular. In 2015, a hypothesis emerged that captured the public imagination: Maybe an alien civilization had built some kind of megastructure around Tabby's Star, periodically blocking the star's light as seen from Earth. Alternative explanations (all of which seem far more likely) were produced, but there's not enough evidence to fully explain the mystery.

In 2016, the saga of Tabby's Star continued. New evidence suggested that the star's sporadic dimming might have been going on for a century. That makes it unlikely that the source of the dimming is a swarm of comets, but it could also make it unlikely that an alien megastructure is to blame. Further observations revealed that the star not only demonstrated periods of rapid brightening but was apparently decreasing in brightness overall.

That hasn't discouraged people from investigating the star further. The Breakthrough Listen initiative, which will spend $100 million over the next 10 years to hunt for signals possibly produced by alien civilizations, plans to study Tabby's Star with the 330-foot-wide (100 m) Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. Astronomer Tabetha "Tabby" Boyajian of Yale University (for whom the star is nicknamed) was part of the team that originally identified the star's irregular behavior. Boyajian and her colleagues collected more than $100,000 through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, and they plan to use those funds to pay for telescope time to study Tabby's Star further.

Kalpana Chawla - Biography of a Shining Star

Kalpana Chawla's story is an absolutely inspiring one! It’s the story of an ordinary girl who dreamt big and reached for the stars…literally. As most people know, Kalpana Chawla was an astronaut and space shuttle mission specialist for STS-107 (Columbia). She was killed in a spacecraft accident when at the end of its mission, Columbia disintegrated after reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Born in Karnal, Haryana, India on July 1, 1961 to Banarasi Lal Chawla and Sanjyothi, Kalpana was the youngest of four siblings, after 2 sisters, Sunita and Dipa, and a brother, Sanjay. She completed her earlier schooling at Tagore Public School in Karnal. Chawla's mother has mentioned in an interview that her daughter was "different." "She used to cut her own hair, never wore ironed clothes, learned karate." One of her teachers remembered a project she had done on the environment, making "huge, colorful charts and models depicting the sky and stars." From her earliest childhood, she and her brother shared an interest in flying. Her interest in flight was inspired by J. R. D. Tata, India's first pilot. To pursue her dream of flying airplanes and becoming an Aerospace Engineer, she earned her Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College at Chandigarh in 1982. She was at the top of her class and had been offered a job in her own college. But when she learned that she was accepted at the University of Texas for a Master's in Aeronautical Engineering, she moved to the United States in 1982. There she obtained M.S. in Aerospace Engineering in the year 1984. In 1988, she received her Doctorate from University of Colorado. The same year she married Jean Pierre Harrison whom she had met on the day she landed in America for the first time. Harrison was a freelance flying instructor, and introduced Chawla to scuba diving, hiking, and long flying expeditions. She kept her brother informed of her budding relationship, and it was he who helped persuade their parents to let his sister marry Harrison.

With her Ph.D. in hand, Chawla began working at the NASA Ames Research Center in the San Francisco Bay area. The simulation of complex air flows encountered around spacecraft was the focus of her research. Later on, Chawla took a position with Overset Methods, Inc. in Silicon Valley. She served as the Vice President and as a research scientist. Her work and its results were presented at conferences and published in various professional journals.

Chawla was chosen for the astronaut program in December 1994 and was selected for her first flight in 1996. She spoke the following words while traveling in the weightlessness of space, "You are just your intelligence". She had traveled 10.4 million km, as many as 252 times around the Earth. Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997 as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second Indian person to fly in space, following cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 in a spacecraft. During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture the satellite. A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying errors in software interfaces and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control.

In 2000, she was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems. On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission. Chawla's responsibilities included the microgravity experiments, for which the crew conducted nearly 80 experiments studying earth and space science advanced technology development, and astronaut health and safety. On February 1, 2003, after completing their assigned duties, the crew of mission STS-107 was all set to return to Earth. Everything looked alright until US space shuttle Columbia gained entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. During its final descent, just 16 minutes prior to landing, the space shuttle exploded into pieces. The entire crew perished along with Kalpana Chawla. Since then, the tragic and untimely death of this extraordinary woman has remained in the memories of many.

Many awards and memorials have been instituted in the honor of Kalpana Chawla. The Outstanding Recent Alumni Award at the University of Colorado, given since 1983, was renamed for Kalpana Chawla. At least 30,000 schoolchildren and citizens joined hands to make a 36.4 km-long human chain to support the demand for a Kalpana Chawla medical college in the city of Karnal to demonstrate that they continue to revere Kalpana Chawla as an outstanding astronaut. Haryana Government accepted this long pending demand of the people of Karnal and the establishment of Kalpana Chawla Medical College is in progress. The Government of Haryana has also made a Planetarium after her name called Kalpana Chawla Planetarium in Jyotisar, Kurukshetra. Shortly after her last mission, India renamed its first weather satellite 'Kalpana-1' in her honor. Steve Morse from the band Deep Purple created a song called "Contact Lost" in memory of the Columbia tragedy. The song can be found in the album Bananas.

Kalpana Chawla lived as a role-model for many young women, particularly those in her hometown of Karnal where she periodically returned to encourage young girls to follow in her footsteps. And in the end, she died a hero. Her brother, Sanjay Chawla remarked, "To me, my sister is not dead. She is immortal. Isn't that what a star is? She is a permanent star in the sky. She will always be up there where she belongs”.

5 Unforgettable Moments in the History of Spaceflight and Space Exploration

Humans have made great strides in spaceflight and space exploration in the relatively short amount of time since such feats were first accomplished. Here we explore five of the most important and memorable moments in spaceflight history.

First Satellite in Space

On October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 became the first satellite to be launched by man, inaugurating the space age. According to Britannica’s aerospace industry article:

[The] launch of Sputnik in 1957 signaled not only Soviet technical leadership in a new field but also the capability and extent of Soviet large-missile development and production. This leadership persisted into the era of manned spaceflight, and, exploiting a minimalistic but sophisticated approach to technology, it continued in the pioneering era of space vehicles and space station

First Satellite in Space

On October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 became the first satellite to be launched by man, inaugurating the space age. According to Britannica’s aerospace industry article:

[The] launch of Sputnik in 1957 signaled not only Soviet technical leadership in a new field but also the capability and extent of Soviet large-missile development and production. This leadership persisted into the era of manned spaceflight, and, exploiting a minimalistic but sophisticated approach to technology, it continued in the pioneering era of space vehicles and space stations

First Man in Space   

On October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 became the first satellite to be launched by man, inaugurating the space age. According to Britannica’s aerospace industry article:

[The] launch of Sputnik in 1957 signaled not only Soviet technical leadership in a new field but also the capability and extent of Soviet large-missile development and production. This leadership persisted into the era of manned spaceflight, and, exploiting a minimalistic but sophisticated approach to technology, it continued in the pioneering era of space vehicles and space stations.

First Man in Space

On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yury A. Gagarin, onboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, became the first human in space. The voyage, which began with launch at 9:07 am Moscow time, entailed one orbit around Earth, lasting 1 hour 29 minutes, and ended at 10:55 am in the Soviet Union with his safe return to Earth. It also brought Gagarin immediate worldwide fame.

The Lunar Landing

The Apollo 11 spaceflight, which on July 20, 1969, achieved its goal of landing the first humans on the Moon, was arguably one of the most momentous events in 20th-century space exploration. The flight, landing, and return of the spacecraft to Earth was witnessed on television by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. As Britannica’s biography on Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong recounts:

On July 16, 1969, Armstrong, along with Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins, blasted off in the Apollo 11 vehicle toward the Moon. Four days later, at 4:17 pm U.S. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), the Eagle lunar landing module, guided manually by Armstrong, touched down on a plain near the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquillity (Mare Tranquillitatis). At 10:56 pm EDT on July 20, 1969, Armstrong stepped from the Eagle onto the Moon’s dusty surface with the words, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” (In the excitement of the moment, Armstrong skipped the “a” in the statement that he had prepared.) Armstrong and Aldrin left the module for more than two hours and deployed scientific instruments, collected surface samples, and took numerous photographs.

Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope

On April 25, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope, named after Edwin Powell Hubble, was placed into orbit by crew members of the space shuttle Discovery. The large reflecting telescope was the most sophisticated optical observatory ever to orbit Earth, and the photographs it collected ultimately revolutionized the field of astronomy.

Flight of the First Private Spacecraft

On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne, designed and developed by an aerospace development company known as Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, which was founded in 1982 by American aircraft designer Burt Rutan (author of Britannica’s SpaceShipOne article), became the first private manned space vehicle to fly past the boundary of space. The vehicle was flown by South African-born American test pilot Mike Melvill, who, in successfully soaring past the edge of space, became the first commercial astronaut-pilot.

10 Places to Visit in the Solar System

Having a tough time deciding where to go on vacation? Do you want to go someplace with startling natural beauty that isn’t overrun with tourists? Do you want to go somewhere where you won’t need to take a passport or get vaccinations? If you look up in the night sky, you’ll see a few of these places. All you’ll need is a fast rocket and enough food, water, and air for the trip, which could take months or even years.

Caloris Basin, Mercury

About 4 billion years ago, the inner solar system was being cleared of the remaining debris left over from its formation. During this period, which is called the Late Heavy Bombardment, a large asteroid like those that created the “seas” on the Moon crashed into the planet Mercury and formed the Caloris Basin, one of the largest such features in the solar system with a diameter of 1,550 km (960 miles). The interior of the basin is filled with high ridges and deep fractures that radiate outward from the centre. The basin is surrounded by Mercury’s highest mountains towering 3 km (2 miles) above the plains and many lava vents, which point to a period of active volcanism. Bring your sunscreen; you’ll catch about 7 times more rays than you do on Earth because you’re so much closer to the Sun.

Apollo 11 landing site, Sea of Tranquility, Moon

The solar system isn’t all stark craters and majestic vistas; humanity has scattered its artifacts among the planets and interplanetary space. If you had to choose one such historical site to visit, make it the Apollo 11 landing site at the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, where on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on another world. There you will see the lower part of the lunar module Eagle. But be careful where you step. Your footprints and those left by Armstrong and Aldrin will last for millions of years.

Valles Marineris, Mars

Arizona’s Grand Canyon is very impressive. It’s 450 km (280 miles) long and about 2 km (1 mile) deep. However, when set next to the Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars, it is a mere ditch. Discovered in 1971 by Mariner 9 (for which it is named), Valles Marineris stretches 4,000 km (2,500 miles) across the planet. Typical canyons are 200 km (125 miles) across and have walls 2–5 km (1–3 miles) deep. The center of the canyon system is a depression 600 km (375 miles) across and 9 km (5.6 miles) deep. It has been speculated that Valles Marineris may be a fault system separating two continental plates. If so, Mars and Earth would be the only planets with surfaces shaped by plate tectonics.

Olympus Mons, Mars

Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system. It is 700 km (435 miles across and rises 22 km (14 miles) above the surrounding Tharsis plain. The edge of Olympus Mons is a cliff 10 km (6 miles) high. From there it is a shallow slope to the central craters, which are 85 km (53 miles) across. The largest such volcano on Earth, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, is 120 km (75 miles) across and 9 km (6 miles) high, although much of it is hidden beneath the ocean floor.

Great Red Spot

The Great Red Spot is Jupiter’s largest surface feature, a swirling red oval storm twice the size of Earth. It has been continuously observed since 1878 and shows no signs of abating. The entire system rotates every seven days, with wind speeds at the edge of 400 km (250 miles) per hour. It floats above Jupiter’s main cloud layers, and it is unknown how far it extends into Jupiter’s interior. The spot itself sometimes changes color from an orange-red to gray, when it is covered by white clouds at a higher altitude. What makes the spot red is unknown, and speculation has ranged from sulfur and phosphorous compounds to organic material such as carbon compounds produced by lightning or chemical reactions with sunlight.

Io

Jupiter has four large moons, called the Galilean satellites because they were discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo in 1610. Because Io is the closest to Jupiter, tidal effects squeeze the moon like a rubber ball, heating the interior. This energy is released in spectacular volcanic eruptions of silicate lava. Io’s volcanoes were discovered by the American probe Voyager 1 in 1979, making the moon the first place beyond Earth where active volcanoes were observed. These eruptions are so numerous that Io is entirely resurfaced every few millennia. The surface is mottled in orange, white, and yellow hues from sulfur and sulfur compounds.

Europa

Europa is another of the Galilean satellites, but it is covered by ice. The surface is smooth with few impact craters, indicating that it is very young. In fact, the surface may be so young that resurfacing is currently happening on Europa. What is below the surface of ice is an interesting question. The ice is probably about 150 km (95 miles) thick, but below that may be an ocean of liquid water. Scientists have speculated that if such an ocean exists, it may harbor life with the heat energy coming from the tidal flexure of Europa (which would be less extreme than that suffered by Io, but still noticeable). If the cracks seen in Europa’s surface are much thinner parts of the crust, it may be possible for a submarine probe to melt its way down through the ice and travel the hidden waters of the subsurface ocean.

Saturn’s Rings

The rings of Saturn are one of the most distinct planetary features in the solar system. They have a diameter of 270,000 km (170,000 miles), but they are astonishingly thin, with a thickness of only 100 meters (330 feet). The rings are made up of many particles of rock and dust and lie within what is known as the Roche limit, the radius within which a large moon would be torn apart by the great tides that Saturn would exert upon it. These tidal forces also prevent the particles in the rings from agglomerating into a larger body.

South Polar Geysers, Enceladus

The brightest moon of Saturn, Enceladus, has a smooth, almost featureless surface covered with ice. However, at the south pole is the tiger stripe region, several ridges from which gigantic geysers spew water thousands of kilometers out into space and form one of Saturn’s rings. The geysers likely come from an ocean of liquid water underneath the ice. Where there is water and energy, there may be life.

Hawaii

After touring the solar system from the vast chasms of Valles Marineris to the frigid geysers of Enceladus to the immense storm of the Great Red Spot, you might want to end your vacation in a place with a breathable atmosphere and plenty of surface liquid water. Luckily Earth is full of such beautiful places, such as the volcanic island chain of Hawaii in the middle of the planet’s largest ocean, the Pacific. The volcanoes there are not as large as Olympus Mons and are not as numerous as those on Io, but they are conveniently located near paved roads, nice hotels, fine restaurants, and fabulous beaches. Have a good trip!