Speed ​​of a space rocket. How spaceships roam the stars

11.06.2010 00:10

The American spacecraft Dawn recently set a new speed record of 25.5 thousand km/h, ahead of its main competitor, the Deep Space 1 probe. This achievement was made possible thanks to the ultra-powerful ion engine installed on the device. However, according to experts NASA, this is far from the limit of its capabilities.

The speed of the American spacecraft Dawn reached a record value on June 5 - 25.5 thousand km/h. However, according to scientists, in the near future the ship’s speed will reach 100 thousand km/h.

Thus, thanks to its unique engine, Dawn surpassed its predecessor, the Deep Space 1 probe, an experimental automatic spacecraft launched on October 24, 1998 by a launch vehicle. True, Deep Space 1 still retains the title of the station whose engines lasted the longest. But Dawn can get ahead of its “competitor” in this category as early as August.

The main task of the spacecraft, launched three years ago, is to study the asteroid 4 Vesta, which the device will approach in 2011, and the dwarf planet Ceres. Scientists hope to obtain the most accurate data on the shape, size, mass, mineral and elemental composition of these objects located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. The total distance to be covered by the Dawn spacecraft is 4 billion 800 million kilometers.

Since there is no air in outer space, having accelerated, the ship continues to move at the same speed. On Earth this is impossible due to slowdown due to friction. The use of ion engines in airless space allowed scientists to make the process of gradually increasing the speed of the Dawn spacecraft as efficient as possible.

The operating principle of the innovative engine is the ionization of gas and its acceleration by an electrostatic field. At the same time, due to the high charge-to-mass ratio, it becomes possible to accelerate the ions to very high speeds. Thus, a very high specific impulse can be achieved in the engine, which can significantly reduce the consumption of the reactive mass of ionized gas (compared to a chemical reaction), but requires large amounts of energy.

Dawn's three engines do not operate constantly, but are turned on briefly at certain points in the flight. To date, they have worked for a total of 620 days and have consumed over 165 kilograms of xenon. Simple calculations show that the speed of the probe increased by about 100 km/h every four days. By the end of Dawn's eight-year mission (although experts do not rule out its extension), the total operating time of the engines will be 2,000 days—almost 5.5 years. Such indicators promise that the speed of the spacecraft will reach 38.6 thousand km/h.

This may seem like a small amount against the background of at least the first cosmic speed with which artificial Earth satellites are launched, but for an interplanetary vehicle without any external accelerators, which does not perform special maneuvers in the gravitational field of the planets, this result is truly remarkable.

One of humanity's greatest assets is the International Space Station, or ISS. Several states united to create it and operate it in orbit: Russia, some European countries, Canada, Japan and the USA. This apparatus shows that much can be achieved if countries constantly cooperate. Everyone on the planet knows about this station and many people ask questions about at what altitude the ISS flies and in what orbit. How many astronauts have been there? Is it true that tourists are allowed there? And this is not all that is interesting to humanity.

Station structure

The ISS consists of fourteen modules, which house laboratories, warehouses, rest rooms, bedrooms, and utility rooms. The station even has a gym with exercise equipment. This entire complex runs on solar panels. They are huge, the size of a stadium.

Facts about the ISS

During its operation, the station aroused a lot of admiration. This apparatus is the greatest achievement of human minds. In its design, purpose and features, it can be called perfection. Of course, maybe in 100 years they will start building spaceships of a different type on Earth, but for now, today, this device is the property of humanity. This is evidenced by the following facts about the ISS:

1. During its existence, about two hundred astronauts visited the ISS. There were also tourists here who simply came to look at the Universe from orbital heights.
2. The station is visible from Earth with the naked eye. This structure is the largest among artificial satellites and can be easily seen from the surface of the planet without any magnifying device. There are maps on which you can see what time and when the device flies over cities. Using them you can easily find information about your locality: see the flight schedule over the region.
3. To assemble the station and maintain it in working order, the astronauts went into outer space more than 150 times, spending about a thousand hours there.
4. The device is controlled by six astronauts. The life support system ensures the continuous presence of people at the station from the moment it was first launched.
5. The International Space Station is a unique place where a wide variety of laboratory experiments are conducted. Scientists make unique discoveries in the fields of medicine, biology, chemistry and physics, physiology and meteorological observations, as well as in other fields of science.
6. The device uses giant solar panels the size of a football field with its end zones. Their weight is almost three hundred thousand kilograms.
7. The batteries are capable of fully ensuring the operation of the station. Their work is carefully monitored.
8. The station has a mini-house equipped with two bathrooms and a gym.
9. The flight is monitored from Earth. Programs consisting of millions of lines of code have been developed for control.

Astronauts

Since December 2017, the ISS crew consists of the following astronomers and cosmonauts:

• Anton Shkaplerov - commander of ISS-55. He visited the station twice - in 2011-2012 and in 2014-2015. During 2 flights he lived at the station for 364 days.
• Skeet Tingle - flight engineer, NASA astronaut. This astronaut has no space flight experience.
• Norishige Kanai - flight engineer, Japanese astronaut.
• Alexander Misurkin. Its first flight was made in 2013, lasting 166 days.
• Macr Vande Hai has no flying experience.
• Joseph Akaba. The first flight was made in 2009 as part of Discovery, and the second flight was carried out in 2012.

Earth from space

There are unique views of Earth from space. This is evidenced by photographs and videos of astronauts and cosmonauts. You can see the work of the station and space landscapes if you watch online broadcasts from the ISS station. However, some cameras are turned off due to maintenance work.

In the struggle to overcome the “condensation threshold,” aerodynamics scientists had to abandon the use of an expanding nozzle. Supersonic wind tunnels of a fundamentally new type were created. At the entrance to such a pipe a high-pressure cylinder is placed, which is separated from it by a thin plate - a diaphragm. At the outlet, the pipe is connected to a vacuum chamber, as a result of which a high vacuum is created in the pipe.

If the diaphragm is broken, for example by a sharp increase in pressure in the cylinder, the gas flow will rush through the pipe into the rarefied space of the vacuum chamber, preceded by a powerful shock wave. Therefore, these installations are called shock wind tunnels.

As with a balloon-type tube, the impact time of wind tunnels is very short, amounting to only a few thousandths of a second. To carry out the necessary measurements in such a short time, it is necessary to use complex, high-speed electronic devices.

The shock wave moves in the pipe at very high speed and without a special nozzle. In wind tunnels created abroad, it was possible to obtain air flow speeds of up to 5,200 meters per second at a temperature of the flow itself of 20,000 degrees. At such high temperatures, the speed of sound in a gas also increases, and much more. Therefore, despite the high speed of the air flow, its excess over the speed of sound turns out to be insignificant. The gas moves at a high absolute speed and at a low speed relative to sound.

To reproduce high supersonic flight speeds, it was necessary to either further increase the speed of the air flow, or reduce the speed of sound in it, that is, reduce the air temperature. And then aerodynamicists again remembered the expanding nozzle: after all, with its help you can do both at the same time - it accelerates the gas flow and at the same time cools it. The expanding supersonic nozzle in this case turned out to be the gun from which aerodynamicists killed two birds with one stone. In shock tubes with such a nozzle, it was possible to obtain air flow speeds 16 times higher than the speed of sound.

AT SATELLITE SPEED

There are various ways to sharply increase the pressure in the shock tube cylinder and thereby rupture the diaphragm. For example, as they do in the USA, where a powerful electric discharge is used.

A high-pressure cylinder is placed in the pipe at the inlet, separated from the rest by a diaphragm. Behind the cylinder there is an expanding nozzle. Before the start of the tests, the pressure in the cylinder increased to 35-140 atmospheres, and in the vacuum chamber, at the outlet of the pipe, it dropped to a millionth of atmospheric pressure. Then a super-powerful discharge of an electric arc was produced in the cylinder with a current of one million! Artificial lightning in a wind tunnel sharply increased the pressure and temperature of the gas in the cylinder, the diaphragm instantly evaporated and the air flow rushed into the vacuum chamber.

Within one tenth of a second, it was possible to reproduce a flight speed of about 52,000 kilometers per hour, or 14.4 kilometers per second! Thus, in laboratories it was possible to overcome both the first and second cosmic velocities.

From that moment on, wind tunnels became a reliable aid not only for aviation, but also for rocketry. They allow us to solve a number of issues of modern and future space navigation. With their help, you can test models of rockets, artificial Earth satellites and spaceships, reproducing the part of their flight that they pass within the planetary atmosphere.

But the speeds achieved should be only at the very beginning of the scale of an imaginary cosmic speedometer. Their development is only the first step towards the creation of a new branch of science - space aerodynamics, which was brought to life by the needs of rapidly developing rocket technology. And there are already significant new successes in the further development of cosmic speeds.

Since air is ionized to some extent during an electric discharge, one can try to use electromagnetic fields in the same shock tube to further accelerate the resulting air plasma. This possibility was realized practically in another small-diameter hydromagnetic shock tube designed in the USA, in which the speed of the shock wave reached 44.7 kilometers per second! So far, spacecraft designers can only dream of such a speed of movement.

There is no doubt that further advances in science and technology will open up greater opportunities for the aerodynamics of the future. Already now, modern physical installations, for example, installations with high-speed plasma jets, are beginning to be used in aerodynamic laboratories. To reproduce the flight of photon rockets in a rarefied interstellar medium and to study the passage of spaceships through clusters of interstellar gas, it will be necessary to use the achievements of nuclear particle acceleration technology.

And, obviously, long before the first spaceships leave the borders, their miniature copies will more than once experience in wind tunnels all the hardships of a long journey to the stars.

P.S. What else are British scientists thinking about: however, cosmic speed happens not only in scientific laboratories. So, let’s say, if you are interested in creating websites in Saratov - http://galsweb.ru/, then here they will create it for you at truly cosmic speed.

From helicopters and spaceships to elementary particles, here are the 25 fastest things in the world.

25. The fastest train

The Japanese JR-Maglev train reached speeds exceeding 581 kilometers per hour using magnetic levitation.

24. The fastest roller coaster


The Formula Rossa, recently built in Dubai, allows adventurers to reach speeds of 240 kilometers per hour.

23. The fastest elevator


The elevators at Taipei Tower in Taiwan carry people up and down at speeds of 60 kilometers per hour.

22. Fastest production car


The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4, accelerating up to 430 kilometers per hour, is the fastest car in the world approved for use on public roads.

21. The fastest non-production car


On October 15, 1997, the Thrust SSC rocket-propelled vehicle broke the sound barrier in the Nevada desert.

20. The fastest manned aircraft


The Air Force X-15 not only reaches impressive speeds (7,270 kilometers per hour), but also flies so high that several of its pilots received astronaut wings from NASA.

19. Fastest tornado


The tornado that occurred near the city of Oklahoma was the fastest in terms of wind speeds, reaching 480 kilometers per hour.

18. The fastest man


In 2009, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt set a world record in the 100 meters, running it in 9.58 seconds.

17. Fastest woman


In 1988, American Florenc Griffith-Joyner ran the 100-meter dash in 10.49 seconds, a record that has never been broken to this day.

16. Fastest land animal


In addition to the fact that cheetahs run fast (120 kilometers per hour), they are also capable of accelerating faster than most production cars (from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 3 seconds).

15. The fastest fish


Some individuals of the sailfish species can accelerate to 112 kilometers per hour.

14. The fastest bird


The peregrine falcon is also the fastest animal in the world overall and can exceed speeds of 325 kilometers per hour.

13. Fastest computer


Although this record will likely be broken by the time you read this article, China's Milky Way-2 is the fastest computer in the world.

12. Fastest submarine


It is difficult to register records in such things, since information about submarines is usually kept secret. However, according to some estimates, the Soviet submarine K-162 reached its highest speed in 1969. The speed was about 44 knots.

11. The fastest helicopter


In July 2010, the Sikorsky X2 set a new speed record over West Palm Beach - 415 kilometers per hour.

10. Fastest boat


The world water speed record is the officially recognized maximum speed achieved by water transport. The current record holder is the Spirit of Australia, which reached 511 kilometers per hour.

9. The fastest sport with rackets


In badminton, the shuttlecock can reach speeds of more than 320 kilometers per hour.

8. The fastest land transport


Military missile sleds reach speeds exceeding Mach 8 (9,800 kilometers per hour).

7. Fastest spaceship


In space, speed can only be measured relative to other objects. Taking this into account, the fastest spacecraft, moving from the Sun at a speed of 62,000 kilometers per hour, is Voyager 1.

6. Fastest eater


Joey “Jaws” Chestnut is now recognized as world champion by the International Federation of Competitive Eating after eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

5. Fastest crash test


To determine the safety rating, EuroNCAP usually conducts its crash tests at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. However, in 2011, they decided to increase the speed to 190 kilometers per hour. Just for fun.

4. Fastest guitarist


John Taylor set a new world record by playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" perfectly at 600 beats per minute.

3. Fastest rapper


No Clue received the title of "fastest rapper" in the Guinness Book of Records when he spoke 723 syllables in 51.27 seconds. He pronounced about 14 syllables per second.

2. Highest speed


Technically, the fastest speed in the Universe is the speed of light. However, there are a few caveats that lead us to the first point...

1. The fastest elementary particle


Although this is a controversial claim, scientists at the European Nuclear Research Center recently conducted experiments in which mu-meson neutrinos traveled between Geneva, Switzerland and Gran Sasso, Italy, several nanoseconds faster than light. However, for now, the photon is still considered the king of speed.

Duration of continuous stay of a person in space flight conditions:

During the operation of the Mir station, absolute world records were set for the duration of continuous human presence in space flight conditions:
1987 - Yuri Romanenko (326 days 11 hours 38 minutes);
1988 - Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov (365 days 22 hours 39 minutes);
1995 - Valery Polyakov (437 days 17 hours 58 minutes).

The total time a person spends in space flight conditions:

Absolute world records have been set for the duration of the total time a person spent in space flight at the Mir station:
1995 - Valery Polyakov - 678 days 16 hours 33 minutes (for 2 flights);
1999 - Sergey Avdeev - 747 days 14 hours 12 minutes (for 3 flights).

Spacewalks:

The Mir OS carried out 78 spacewalks (including three spacewalks into the depressurized Spektr module) with a total duration of 359 hours and 12 minutes. The following participants took part in the exits: 29 Russian cosmonauts, 3 US astronauts, 2 French astronauts, 1 ESA astronaut (German citizen). Sunita Williams, a NASA astronaut, became the world record holder among women for the longest duration of work in outer space. The American worked on the ISS for more than six months (November 9, 2007) together with two crews and made four spacewalks.

Space longevity:

According to the authoritative scientific digest New Scientist, Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev, as of Wednesday, August 17, 2005, had been in orbit for 748 days, thereby breaking the previous record set by Sergei Avdeev - during his three flights to the Mir station (747 days 14 hours 12 min). The various physical and mental stresses Krikalev endured characterize him as one of the most resilient and successfully adapting astronauts in the history of astronautics. Krikalev's candidacy was repeatedly elected to carry out rather complex missions. University of Texas physician and psychologist David Masson describes the astronaut as the best one you can find.

Duration of space flight among women:

Among women, world records for space flight duration under the Mir program were set by:
1995 - Elena Kondakova (169 days 05 hours 1 min); 1996 - Shannon Lucid, USA (188 days 04 hours 00 minutes, including at the Mir station - 183 days 23 hours 00 minutes).

The longest space flights of foreign citizens:

Among foreign citizens, the longest flights under the Mir program were made by:
Jean-Pierre Haignere (France) - 188 days 20 hours 16 minutes;
Shannon Lucid (USA) - 188 days 04 hours 00 minutes;
Thomas Reiter (ESA, Germany) - 179 days 01 hours 42 minutes.

Cosmonauts who have completed six or more spacewalks on the Mir station:

Anatoly Solovyov - 16 (77 hours 46 minutes),
Sergey Avdeev - 10 (41 hours 59 minutes),
Alexander Serebrov - 10 (31 hours 48 minutes),
Nikolay Budarin - 8 (44 hours 00 minutes),
Talgat Musabaev - 7 (41 hours 18 minutes),
Victor Afanasyev - 7 (38 hours 33 minutes),
Sergey Krikalev - 7 (36 hours 29 minutes),
Musa Manarov - 7 (34 hours 32 minutes),
Anatoly Artsebarsky - 6 (32 hours 17 minutes),
Yuriy Onufrienko - 6 (30 hours 30 minutes),
Yuri Usachev - 6 (30 hours 30 minutes),
Gennady Strekalov - 6 (21 hours 54 minutes),
Alexander Viktorenko - 6 (19 hours 39 minutes),
Vasily Tsibliev - 6 (19 hours 11 minutes).

First manned spacecraft:

The first manned space flight registered by the International Federation of Aeronautics (IFA founded in 1905) was made on the Vostok spacecraft on April 12, 1961 by USSR pilot cosmonaut Major of the USSR Air Force Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin (1934...1968). From the official documents of the IFA it follows that the ship launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:07 a.m. GMT and landed near the village of Smelovka, Ternovsky district, Saratov region. USSR in 108 min. The maximum flight altitude of the Vostok ship, with a length of 40868.6 km, was 327 km with a maximum speed of 28260 km/h.

First woman in space:

The first woman to fly around the Earth in space orbit was junior lieutenant of the USSR Air Force (now lieutenant colonel engineer pilot cosmonaut of the USSR) Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937), launched on the Vostok 6 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Kazakhstan USSR, at 9:30 min GMT on June 16, 1963 and landed at 08:16 on June 19 after a flight that lasted 70 hours and 50 minutes. During this time, it made more than 48 complete revolutions around the Earth (1,971,000 km).

Oldest and youngest astronauts:

The oldest among the 228 cosmonauts on Earth was Karl Gordon Henitze (USA), who at the age of 58 took part in the 19th flight of the Challenger spacecraft on July 29, 1985. The youngest was a major in the USSR Air Force (currently Lieutenant General pilot USSR cosmonaut) German Stepanovich Titov (born September 11, 1935) who was launched on the Vostok 2 spacecraft on August 6, 1961 at the age of 25 years 329 days.

First spacewalk:

The first to enter outer space on March 18, 1965 from the Voskhod 2 spacecraft was Lieutenant Colonel of the USSR Air Force (now Major General, pilot cosmonaut of the USSR) Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov (born May 20, 1934). He moved away from the ship at a distance of up to 5 m and spent 12 min 9 s in open space outside the airlock chamber.

First female spacewalk:

In 1984, Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to go into outer space, working outside the Salyut-7 station for 3 hours and 35 minutes. Before becoming an astronaut, Svetlana set three world records in parachuting in group jumps from the stratosphere and 18 aviation records in jet aircraft.

Record for longest spacewalk among women:

NASA astronaut Sunita Lyn Williams has set a record for the longest spacewalk for women. She spent 22 hours and 27 minutes outside the station, exceeding the previous achievement by more than 21 hours. The record was set during work on the outer part of the ISS on January 31 and February 4, 2007. Williams prepared the station for continued construction along with Michael Lopez-Alegria.

First autonomous spacewalk:

US Navy Captain Bruce McCandles II (born June 8, 1937) was the first person to work in outer space without a tether. On February 7, 1984, he left the Challenger space shuttle at an altitude of 264 km above Hawaii in a spacesuit with a self-contained backpack. propulsion system. The development of this space suit cost $15 million.

Longest manned flight:

Colonel of the USSR Air Force Vladimir Georgievich Titov (born January 1, 1951) and flight engineer Musa Khiramanovich Manarov (born March 22, 1951) launched on the Soyuz-M4 spacecraft on December 21, 1987 to the Mir space station and landed on the Soyuz-TM6 spacecraft (together with French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien) at an alternate landing site near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, USSR, on December 21, 1988, having spent 365 days 22 hours 39 minutes 47 seconds in space.

Farthest journey in space:

Soviet cosmonaut Valery Ryumin spent almost a whole year in the spacecraft, which completed 5,750 revolutions around the Earth in those 362 days. At the same time, Ryumin traveled a distance of 241 million kilometers. This is equal to the distance from Earth to Mars and back to Earth.

The most experienced space traveler:

The most experienced space traveler is Colonel of the USSR Air Force, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (born in 1944), who spent 430 days 18 hours 20 minutes in space in 3 flights in 1977...1978, in 1980 and in 1987 gg.

Largest crew:

The largest crew consisted of 8 astronauts (including 1 woman), who launched on October 30, 1985 on the Challenger reusable spacecraft.

Largest number of people in space:

The largest number of astronauts ever in space at the same time is 11: 5 Americans aboard Challenger, 5 Russians and 1 Indian aboard Salyut 7 in April 1984, 8 Americans aboard Challenger and 3 Russians aboard the Salyut 7 orbital station in October 1985, 5 Americans aboard the space shuttle, 5 Russians and 1 French aboard the Mir orbital station in December 1988.

Highest speed:

The highest speed at which a person has ever moved (39,897 km/h) was achieved by the main module of Apollo 10 at an altitude of 121.9 km from the surface of the Earth when the expedition returned on May 26, 1969. On board the spacecraft were the crew commander, Colonel US Air Force (now Brigadier General) Thomas Patten Stafford (b. Weatherford, Oklahoma, USA, September 17, 1930), US Navy Captain 3rd Class Eugene Andrew Cernan (b. Chicago, Illinois, USA, 14 March 1934) and US Navy Captain 3rd Class (now retired Captain 1st Class) John Watte Young (b. San Francisco, California, USA, September 24, 1930).
Of the women, the highest speed (28,115 km/h) was achieved by junior lieutenant of the USSR Air Force (now lieutenant colonel engineer, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR) Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937) on the Soviet spaceship Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.

Youngest cosmonaut:

The youngest astronaut today is Stephanie Wilson. She was born on September 27, 1966 and is 15 days younger than Anousha Ansari.

The first living creature to travel into space:

The dog Laika, which was launched into orbit around the Earth on the second Soviet satellite on November 3, 1957, was the first living creature in space. Laika died in agony from suffocation when the oxygen ran out.

Record time spent on the Moon:

The Apollo 17 crew collected a record weight (114.8 kg) of rock and pound samples during 22 hours 5 minutes of work outside the spacecraft. The crew included US Navy Captain 3rd Class Eugene Andrew Cernan (b. Chicago, Illinois, USA, March 14, 1934) and Dr. Harrison Schmitt (b. Saita Rose, New Mexico, USA, July 3 1935), becoming the 12th man to walk on the Moon. The astronauts were on the lunar surface for 74 hours 59 minutes during the longest lunar expedition, lasting 12 days 13 hours 51 minutes from December 7 to 19, 1972.

The first man to walk on the moon:

Neil Alden Armstrong (b. Wapakoneta, Ohio, USA, August 5, 1930, Scottish and German ancestors), commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, became the first person to set foot on the surface of the Moon in the region of the Sea of ​​​​Tranquility at 2 o'clock 56 minutes 15 seconds GMT July 21, 1969 Following him from the Eagle lunar module was US Air Force Colonel Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. (b. Montclair, New Jersey, USA, January 20, 1930).

Highest space flight altitude:

The crew of Apollo 13 reached the highest altitude, being in apopulation (i.e. at the farthest point of its trajectory) 254 km from the lunar surface at a distance of 400187 km from the Earth’s surface at 1 hour 21 minutes Greenwich Mean Time on April 15, 1970. The crew included US Navy Captain James Arthur Lovell Jr. (b. Cleveland, Ohio, USA, March 25, 1928), Fred Wallace Hayes Jr. (b. Biloxi, Missouri, USA, November 14, 1933). ) and John L. Swigert (1931...1982). The altitude record for women (531 km) was set by American astronaut Katherine Sullivan (born in Paterson, New Jersey, USA, October 3, 1951) during a flight on a reusable spacecraft on April 24, 1990.

Highest speed of a spacecraft:

The first spacecraft to reach escape velocity 3, allowing it to go beyond the solar system, was Pioneer 10. The Atlas-SLV ZS launch vehicle with a modified 2nd stage Centaur-D and 3rd stage Thiokol-Te-364-4 left the Earth on March 2, 1972 at an unprecedented speed of 51682 km/ h. The spacecraft speed record (240 km/h) was set by the American-German solar probe Helios-B, launched on January 15, 1976.

Maximum approach of the spacecraft to the Sun:

On April 16, 1976, the Helios-B automatic research station (USA - Germany) approached the Sun at a distance of 43.4 million km.

The first artificial satellite of the Earth:

The first artificial Earth satellite was successfully launched on the night of October 4, 1957 into an orbit at an altitude of 228.5/946 km and at a speed of more than 28,565 km/h from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, north of Tyuratam, Kazakhstan, USSR (275 km east of the Aral Sea). The spherical satellite was officially registered as the “1957 Alpha 2” object, weighed 83.6 kg, had a diameter of 58 cm and, having supposedly existed for 92 days, burned up on January 4, 1958. The launch vehicle, modified R 7, 29.5 m long, was developed under the leadership of Chief designer S.P. Korolev (1907...1966) who also led the entire IS3 launch project.

Most distant man-made object:

Pioneer 10 launched from Cape Canaveral Space Center. Kennedy, Florida, USA, crossed the orbit of Pluto on October 17, 1986, which is 5.9 billion km from Earth. By April 1989 it was beyond the farthest point of Pluto's orbit and continues to move into space at a speed of 49 km/h. In 1934 e. it will approach the minimum distance to the star Ross-248, which is 10.3 light years away from us. Even before 1991, the Voyager 1 spacecraft, moving at a higher speed, will be further away than Pioneer 10.

One of the two space “Travelers” Voyager, launched from Earth in 1977, moved 97 AU from the Sun during its 28-year flight. e. (14.5 billion km) and is today the most remote artificial object. Voyager 1 crossed the boundary of the heliosphere, the region where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium, in 2005. Now the path of the device, flying at a speed of 17 km/s, lies in the shock wave zone. Voyager-1 will be operational until 2020. However, it is very likely that information from Voyager-1 will stop coming to Earth at the end of 2006. The fact is that NASA plans to cut the budget by 30% in terms of research of the Earth and the solar system.

The heaviest and largest space object:

The heaviest object launched into low-Earth orbit was the 3rd stage of the American Saturn 5 rocket with the Apollo 15 spacecraft, which weighed 140,512 kg before entering the intermediate selenocentric orbit. The American radio astronomy satellite Explorer 49, launched on June 10, 1973, weighed only 200 kg, but the span of its antennas was 415 m.

Most powerful rocket:

The Soviet space transport system "Energia", first launched on May 15, 1987 from the Baikonur cosmodrome, has a full load weight of 2400 tons and develops a thrust of more than 4 thousand tons. The rocket is capable of delivering a payload weighing up to 140 m into low-Earth orbit, maximum diameter - 16 m. Basically a modular installation used in the USSR. 4 accelerators are attached to the main module, each of which has 1 RD 170 engine running on liquid oxygen and kerosene. A modification of the rocket with 6 accelerators and an upper stage is capable of placing a payload weighing up to 180 tons into low-Earth orbit, delivering a payload weighing 32 tons to the Moon and 27 tons to Venus or Mars.

Flight range record among solar-powered research vehicles:

The Stardust space probe set a kind of flight range record among all solar-powered research vehicles - it is currently 407 million kilometers away from the Sun. The main purpose of the automatic device is to approach the comet and collect dust.

The first self-propelled vehicle on extraterrestrial space objects:

The first self-propelled vehicle designed to operate on other planets and their satellites in automatic mode was the Soviet “Lunokhod 1” (weight - 756 kg, length with open lid - 4.42 m, width - 2.15 m, height - 1. 92 m), delivered to the Moon by the Luna 17 spacecraft and began moving into the Mare Monsim on command from the Earth on November 17, 1970. In total, it traveled 10 km 540 m, overcoming climbs of up to 30°, until it stopped on October 4, 1971. , having worked 301 days 6 hours 37 minutes. The cessation of work was caused by the depletion of the resources of its isotope heat source. Lunokhod-1 examined in detail the lunar surface with an area of ​​80 thousand m2, transmitted to Earth more than 20 thousand of its images and 200 telepanoramas.

Record for speed and distance of movement on the Moon:

The record for speed and range of movement on the Moon was set by the American wheeled lunar rover Rover, delivered there by the Apollo 16 spacecraft. He reached a speed of 18 km/h down the slope and traveled a distance of 33.8 km.

Most expensive space project:

The total cost of the American human spaceflight program, including the last mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, was approximately $25,541,400,000. The first 15 years of the USSR space program, from 1958 to September 1973, according to Western estimates, cost $45 billion. The cost of NASA's Shuttle program (launching reusable spacecraft) before the launch of Columbia on April 12, 1981 was 9.9 billion dollars