For the last time, it independently sent astronauts into low-Earth orbit. After the final mission of the shuttle Atlantis with a crew of four, sending people to the International Space Station (ISS) was handled exclusively by Russia. The country still has at its disposal simple and reliable spacecraft of the Soyuz series, which have been successfully flying into space since the times of the USSR - since April 1967. However, Russia's monopoly as a space carrier will soon come to an end: this year, NASA and its partners have planned a series of key tests of devices that will make the United States the undisputed leader in manned spaceflight. More details in the material.
NASA announced the return of the manned flight program in September 2014. Then, at a special press conference, the head of NASA, retired US Marine Corps Major General Charles Bolden, named two companies that the agency had selected to enter into a multi-billion dollar contract for the construction of manned reusable spacecraft designed to transport astronauts to the ISS. The winners of the tender were and, who presented projects of the Dragon V2 and CST-100 ships (from Crew Space Transportation), respectively. The total cost of creating the devices was $2.6 billion for SpaceX and $4.2 billion for Boeing.
“This was a difficult choice for NASA and the nation, but it was the best choice. We have received numerous proposals from our aerospace companies. Highly skilled American firms, united in their desire to bring humans into space back from US soil, competed to serve the nation and end our dependence on Russia. I applaud their innovation, hard work and patriotism,” Bolden said. He explained the choice in favor of SpaceX and Boeing by the agency’s successful cooperation with these private companies and NASA’s confidence in their compliance with the agency’s high requirements.
The main competitor of SpaceX and Boeing was Sierra Nevada, which proposed that NASA fly to the ISS on a deeply modernized version of the HL-20 orbital aircraft - the Dream Chaser spacecraft. The reasons why NASA chose SpaceX and Boeing, as well as the distribution of funding between them, are obvious: the agency trusts large and reliable partners more and at the same time welcomes healthy competition from young and promising companies. The agency did not award the contract to aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin because the company was already working on the Orion Mars spacecraft. NASA also did not expand cooperation with Orbital ATK (then Orbital Sciences), since its Cygnus trucks were already flying to the ISS.
“For cargo transport, SpaceX has won twelve missions (the cargo version of Dragon is currently flying to the ISS - approx. "Tapes.ru"), and Orbital - eight. Orbital's cash bonus is higher even though they have fewer missions because NASA doesn't want to be dependent on one source. For a manned flight, I expect Boeing or Lockheed will be chosen, which will win the majority of the funding, and we, I hope, will be second,” this is how its head assessed the prospects of SpaceX in June 2010. As it became known four years later, he was not mistaken.
NASA's choice of SpaceX and Boeing as the main partners for manned missions to the ISS led to the fact that in 2014, Sierra Nevada, which unsuccessfully tried to challenge the results of the tender in court, fired about a hundred employees working on Dream Chaser. For its part, the agency promised all support for this young company, but not within the framework of the manned flight program. Then, in 2014, the Americans believed that by 2017 astronauts would be sent to the ISS exclusively from the United States, without the help of the Russian side. SpaceX and Boeing, as time has shown, are fulfilling their obligations, but with about a year's lag.
The Dragon V2 is a deeply modernized version of the Dragon truck, which successfully flies to the ISS. The ship has an almost monoblock design, which in cargo-passenger mode allows, along with a payload of 2.5 tons, to send up to four people to the ISS. In passenger mode, the ship carries up to seven people. In 2017, SpaceX plans to complete production of three Dragon V2 spacecraft, one of which is scheduled to make its first test unmanned flight to the ISS in November. The device is expected to dock with the station and leave it after 30 days.
The interior space of Dragon V2 is organized, according to SpaceX, with the greatest possible convenience for the crew. The pilot's seats are made from premium carbon fiber with Alcantara trim. The astronaut capsule has four windows overlooking the outside space. On a special panel, Dragon V2 crew members will be able to monitor the state of the spacecraft during flight in real time. Also, astronauts will have the opportunity to manually adjust the temperature on board the ship (ranging from 15 to 26 degrees Celsius). In case of emergency situations, an evacuation system is provided.
The first flight of the Dragon V2 will be preceded by fire tests of the Draco and SuperDraco engines. The latter are printed on a three-dimensional printer and installed as elements of the rescue system and for a controlled landing of the ship. SpaceX will also test a special space suit that will allow astronauts to withstand the load in the event of depressurization of the Dragon V2 passenger capsule. Boeing will make a similar option for its suit in 2017. The Dragon V2 and CST-100 devices will land using parachutes - the systems necessary for this will be tested this year.
Dragon V2 will launch on a mid-range Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex SLC-39 at Kennedy, Florida, where the Space Shuttle and Apollo missions previously launched into space. A manned 14-day Dragon V2 mission (with two astronauts on board) is scheduled for May 2018. It is in SpaceX’s interests to meet the stated deadlines, since it was NASA’s funding for the development of cargo and manned spacecraft that allowed the company to avoid the fate of Sierra Nevada; This applies to Boeing to a lesser extent.
The aerospace giant postponed the first test and unmanned flight of the CST-100 from December 2017 to June 2018. After this, a manned flight of a Boeing spacecraft with a crew of two should take place in August of the same year. Like the Dragon V2, the CST-100 is capable of carrying up to seven people into low-Earth orbit. The ship, called Starliner, like Dragon V2, will undergo pre-launch training at the Kennedy Space Center. Starliner launches will be carried out from a heavy Atlas V rocket from the site of the 41st spaceport at Cape Canaveral, and, if necessary, on Delta IV and Falcon 9 carriers, as well as the Vulcan rocket being created.
The reasons why SpaceX and Boeing postponed the first launches of spacecraft under development are fundamentally different. The first company, unlike the second, has significantly more modest resources, which partly needed to be used to identify and eliminate the causes that led to the Falcon 9 accident in September 2016. Then experts from NASA criticized SpaceX for refueling the rocket half an hour before launch. This means that in the event of an emergency when refueling the Falcon 9, the astronauts will be already at the head of the rocket, and not at a safe distance from it. It was precisely on minimizing possible risks that SpaceX spent so much time at the Sea Launch cosmodrome.
Even if Boeing does not have time to prepare the CST-100 within the stated time frame, the company will most likely fulfill its obligations to NASA in full. The agency has already expressed interest in purchasing two Soyuz seats from Boeing for the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018, and three for 2019. Such castlings are also beneficial in connection with the planned temporary reduction in the number of the Russian segment of the ISS from three to two people.
The difficulties faced by NASA's partners in manned space exploration appear to be successfully resolved and are operational. You can be sure that the country that landed people on the Moon six times and sent a ton rover to Mars will cope with these tasks. Ultimately, in a year or two, the United States will have at its disposal a fleet of spacecraft consisting of at least cargo Dragon and Cygnus, manned near-Earth Dragon V2 and CST-100, as well as the lunar-Martian Orion (it can also be used for flights to the ISS, but impractical - too expensive). This will ensure not only the independence of the United States from the Russian Soyuz and their upcoming replacement, the Federation spacecraft, but will also ensure intranational competition between at least four space companies.
American Voyager spacecraft
“Voyager” (traveler) is the name of the American spacecraft for exploring Jupiter, Saturn and their satellites, and possibly Uranus from a flyby trajectory using the gravitational field of Jupiter and Saturn for a perturbation maneuver.
The mass of the spacecraft is 798 kg. The sealed housing (has the shape of a multifaceted prism with a central opening) is mounted on the back side of the highly directional antenna reflector. Most of the devices are mounted on a special bracket, and some of them are installed on the scanning platform.
Power supply is from three (mounted on a bracket) isotope generators, which have a total power of 421 W during the flight near Jupiter, and 384 W during the flight near Saturn. The service life of the installations is 10 years. The three-axis attitude control system uses solar and Canopus sensors, as well as an inertial measurement unit. The executive bodies of the system are 12 micromotors (4 on each axis) with a thrust of 0.9 N. Another 4 of these micromotors provide trajectory correction. The supply of hydrazine for micromotors is designed for 7 years.
The thermal management system uses louvers on five sides of the body and on the scanning platform with scientific instruments, multi-layer thermal insulation, polished aluminum heat shields, metal and plastic solar hoods, and radioisotope heaters with a thermal power of 1 W.
The radio system includes a highly directional antenna with a reflector with a diameter of 3.66 m and an omnidirectional antenna. The receiving frequency for both antennas is 2113 MHz, the transmitting frequency is 2295 MHz (S band). The duplicated on-board digital computer has a main memory with a capacity of 4096 18-bit words, as well as a backup memory of the same capacity. The scientific equipment includes a television camera with a wide-angle lens (focal length 200 mm), a camera with a telephoto lens (1500 mm), cosmic ray detectors, equipment for recording radio emission from Jupiter and Saturn in the range of 10 Hz - 56.2 kHz, detectors of charged particles of low energy, a photopolarimeter with a 150-mm Cassegrain telescope, plasma detectors (two Faraday cups), an ultraviolet spectrometer and more.
The Voyager spacecraft carry identical copper gramophone records, complete with a rotating platter, a pickup, and visual instructions for playing. The records contain the “sounds of the Earth,” which should give representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization an idea of our planet if spacecraft get to them. The duration of the record is 110 minutes. It contains messages from UN Secretary-General Waldheim, greetings in 60 languages, including the dead, Morse code, musical excerpts, the cry of a child, sounds of surf, rain, volcanic eruption, etc. The record also contains video recordings of 115 images.
Two Voyager spacecraft were launched using the Titan-3E launch vehicle, equipped with an additional upper stage: Voyager-2 on August 20, 1977 along a “slow” trajectory to Jupiter, Voyager-1 on September 5, 1977 on a “fast” trajectory. trajectories. On 12/10/1977, Voyager 1 entered the asteroid belt, on 12/15/1977 it overtook Voyage 2 on its trajectory, and on 9/8/1978 it exited the asteroid belt. On March 5, 1979, Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter at a distance of 280,000 km, and on November 12, 1980, it passed near Saturn at a distance of 124,000 km from the tops of its cloud cover and near its satellite Titan (minimum distance from Titan ~ 4500 km). The Voyage 2 spacecraft entered the asteroid belt on December 10, 1977, and exited it on October 21, 1978. On July 9, 1979, it flew past Jupiter at a distance of 648,000 km. The flight path of the Voyage 2 spacecraft near Saturn was supposed to be chosen several months before the flyby. The first option provided for a flyby near Saturn along a trajectory that would provide optimal conditions for studying the satellite of this planet Titan and the circumplanetary space, in particular, a passage behind the rings of Saturn for their radio occultation sounding. The second option involved the flight of the Voyage 2 spacecraft near Saturn along a trajectory that would provide a perturbation maneuver in the planet’s gravitational field with a transition to the flight path to Uranus (in this case, the device will pass at a distance of 353,000 km from Titan). The second option was chosen. On August 26, 1981, the Voyage-2 spacecraft flew past Saturn at a distance of 101 thousand km and switched to a flight path to Uranus. It flew past Uranus in January 1986 and, under the influence of the planet's gravity, switched to a flight path to Neptune, which it passed by in 1989. The probability of maintaining the functionality of the spacecraft to Uranus is estimated at 65%, to Neptune - no more than 40%.
Prikhodko Valentin Ivanovich
"Black theme".
Anything that is not subject to public disclosure is called a “black topic” in the language of the American intelligence community. For many decades, this has been space reconnaissance, which the United States began to engage in even before they learned how to launch satellites. Don't be surprised, but this is exactly the case.
True, the Americans declassified documents about their first spy satellites only in 1995. Since then, this story has acquired a lot of details, which allows us to talk in sufficient detail about the first steps in this direction, as well as what came of it.
I do not intend to reinvent the wheel, so in my story I will use materials from the famous American space historian Dwayne A. Day. He examined declassified documents and told the whole world about how it all began, and how events further developed, and what successes satellite intelligence achieved in the United States, and what failures there were along the way. However, first things first.
In 1954, an organization called RAND (I have already described its activities in this book) issued a report entitled “Feed Back.” It contained the results of research conducted over the previous eight years. The report claimed that a satellite using a television camera could provide useful photographs of the Soviet Union and reveal large structures such as airfields, factories and ports.
But this document could have been gathering dust in the archives for a long time, marked “Top Secret”, if junior officers Quentin Riepe and James had not seen it at the Wright Aircraft Development Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Coolbaugh (James Coolbaugh). They were so interested in the materials of the report that they were inspired by the idea of putting the ideas contained in the report into practice. They managed to raise some money from the various electronics labs on the base and began developing the technologies needed for the satellite.
Reep, Coolbaugh, and a few others they were given to help them believed that the idea of a satellite with a television camera on board was viable, in part because development of the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile was already in full swing, the power of which would be enough to launch the device into low Earth orbit. .
By 1956, half a dozen Air Force officers, led by Lt. Col. Bill King, were working on the satellite project, now called Weapons System 117L. They held a competition to select a contractor for the reconnaissance satellite. The winner was Lockheed, whose engineers said that the television camera was not good enough for reconnaissance photography. They also had concerns that problems might arise when recording television signals onto magnetic tape, as the tape reels would spin at high speeds.
Instead, Lockheed suggested using a camera with film that took a long, narrow picture that was developed on board. Next, it was planned to immediately scan the photographs and transmit the image to Earth via radio. Such a satellite was called a photo-television satellite.
Despite the appeal of this idea, the US Air Force refused to fund the satellite project. They did not consider it necessary to spend money on something that does not have wings and cannot drop atomic bombs.
The Lockheed project did not receive support from other US government agencies. You understand that there was simply no such thing as private investment in the space industry at that time.
However, already in 1957, two intelligence experts from RAND - Merton Davies and Amrom Katz - put forward a proposal to deliver the film to Earth using a return capsule. They believed that the use of new materials to cover the capsule would help protect its contents from the harmful effects of high temperatures when passing through dense layers of the atmosphere. In their opinion, the film contained much more information than could be transmitted over the radio channel.
Davis and Katz managed to convince the leaders of the WS-117L program that they were right. But since the program had very little money, they decided to turn to the CIA for funds to develop this new payload.
Probably, work on the creation of a reconnaissance satellite would have continued in such a leisurely mode for quite a long time, if not for the first Soviet satellite. He changed everything.
The command of the American Air Force suddenly decided that space was vitally important, and sharply increased funding for the WS-117L program. The phototelevision satellite soon received the name Sentry. The Air Force planned to build a “pioneer” version to test the technology, and then an improved version that would perform reconnaissance for practical use.
But this development, according to the most conservative estimates, could have been completed no earlier than 1960. While a small return satellite with photographic film could be made much faster and launched with a smaller Thor rocket.
On the advice of his scientific advisers, US President Dwight Eisenhower approved this new satellite program in February 1958 and directed that it be developed in secret. The implication was that the program was so secret that only a few people would know it even existed. The program was run by the Central Intelligence Agency, which paid for the camera and the spacecraft; The Air Force provided the missile and all kinds of support.
The work on the photo-reconnaissance satellite was headed by a career CIA officer, Richard Bissell. The development of modern technical means for monitoring the territory of the USSR was not new to him. A few years earlier, it was Bissell who led the work on the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, which carried out secret flights over the USSR, China and other socialist countries.
The project was called Corona (“Crown”). True, this name, like most code names for reconnaissance satellites, was usually written in all capital letters: CORONA. It's interesting how this name came about. Bissell dictated the technical requirements for the satellite to the officer, who immediately typed them on a Smith-Corona typewriter. And when a name was needed for the satellite program, it was this officer who came up with Corona. It’s simple, and no one will guess. And so it happened.
Early in development, Bissell made an important change to the spacecraft design. The original project involved installing a small camera inside a small rotating satellite. However, Bissell learned that a more powerful camera was being developed at the fledgling company Itek. This camera, designed by Walter Levison, swung back and forth to produce high-resolution images on a long strip of film. Later it was called a panoramic camera, but required a stable platform.
The upper stage of the Agena launch vehicle was ideally suited for these purposes; at first they wanted to separate it from the satellite after launch, but then they decided to make it part of the design of the reconnaissance vehicle. It was supposed to mount a camera on it, and the exposed film could be directed to a take-up spool in a detachable return apparatus. Bissell considered this solution optimal and awarded Itek a contract to develop such a camera.
In the late 1950s, the CORONA satellite was considered an "interim" option. It was planned that the CIA would build 20 such devices and, starting in 1959, would launch them into space at intervals of about a month. By the time the last of these devices was launched, the larger and more complex Samos Air Force satellite should have appeared. I'll tell you about it a little later.
However, these plans were not destined to come true. Everything turned out to be not so simple, and space has shown its temper more than once or twice.
CORONA's first test launch took place in February 1959 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. He was unsuccessful. Like the second launch, and the third. On the fourth launch, the device carried the first reconnaissance camera, but never entered orbit.
Other problems also arose. By the summer of 1960, CORONA had suffered twelve consecutive failures. It happened that the return vehicles went into the wrong orbits. Sometimes they burned up in the atmosphere. Participants in the program seriously feared its closure, but President Eisenhower considered CORONA too important and continued to support it.
Finally, in August 1960, the first return capsule successfully landed on Earth. The Americans were only a few hours ahead of their main competitors, the Soviet Union, in this matter. True, Soviet designers managed to return living beings, the dogs Belka and Strelka, from orbit.
A few words about how the Americans returned the film from orbit. The capsule with reconnaissance materials, after separation from the main apparatus, entered the atmosphere, where it was decelerated. In this case, the capsule body burned in dense layers. When the speed decreased to reasonable limits, the heat shield was shot off and a round container called a “bucket” remained. At high altitudes, a small parachute was released, which pulled out the main canopy. The capsule was on it and sank northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. As the “bucket” descended over the ocean, an Air Force transport plane flew over it and pulled a cable behind it, held in place by two long poles. The cable was lined with hooks, and one or more of them had to hook and firmly hold the parachute lines. The plane's crew then pulled in the cable and the small capsule.
The Americans received the first photographs of the territory of the USSR during the flight of the fourteenth CORONA (the open name of the satellite is Discoverer-14). The pictures weren't very good, but they revealed many military installations across vast Soviet territory that American intelligence leaders didn't even know about.
Soon CORONA launches became regular. At first, their reliability left much to be desired: 25% of successful missions in 1960, 50% in 1961, 75% in 1962.
As you remember, by this time CORONA should have already been replaced by the Samos satellites, more powerful and more advanced spacecraft, which were being developed by the US Air Force. By the summer of 1960, this program had grown greatly. Now it consisted of phototelevision satellites Samos E-1 and Samos E-2, as well as a satellite with a return vehicle Samos E-5. The Samos E-1 was equipped with a low-resolution camera, intended primarily to demonstrate the technology. Samos E-2 had a higher resolution camera and claimed to be a working satellite. Inside the large pressurized return capsule of the Samos E-5 satellite, a greatly enlarged version of the basic CORONA camera was installed.
The name Samos E-3 referred to a closed project of a phototelevision satellite using technology different from the E-1 and E-2 devices. Finally, the Samos E-4 was a mapping satellite whose development was discontinued after another program, known as the KH-5 ARGON (KH - Key Hole), was launched in 1959. This vehicle used the Thor rocket and CORONA equipment, in particular the re-entry vehicle.
As I have already noted, the CORONA program was considered temporary. It was assumed that when it ended, the CIA would leave the field of satellite intelligence, completely transferring this field of activity to the Air Force. However, things did not go well for the pilots with Samos. By the summer of 1960, the Samos E-1 and Samos E-2 projects were closed, although three test launches of devices of these types still took place. Then the designs of two new satellites were approved, which, like CORONA, used return capsules. One of them was a device called Samos E-6, the other was a particularly high-resolution satellite GAMBIT.
The Samos E-6 used a large reentry vehicle and two panoramic cameras developed by Eastman Kodak. Its first launch took place in 1962 and was unsuccessful. Four more launches also failed, and by 1963 the project was abandoned.
Meanwhile, CORONA continued to work. It became a very reliable and successful intelligence system. Moreover, work was continuously going on to improve both the satellite itself and the cameras that were installed on it.
The first models, known as the KH-1, KH-2 and KH-3, were soon replaced by the KH-4, which had greater capabilities. This device, known as MURAL, had two cameras instead of one. Each camera was tilted slightly toward the other, and they took pictures of the surface from different angles. This is how stereo photographs were obtained, which allowed experts to make accurate measurements of ground objects.
At first, the smallest objects that could be detected on film were 10 meters in size. But by 1963 this figure was improved to 4 meters, and by 1968 to 2 meters. However, the photographs were not good enough to determine the technical characteristics of the object, such as how much fuel a given rocket or plane could carry.
Satellites like the Samos E-5, which could bring some clarity to these issues, were launched three times in the early 1960s. None of the launches were successful, so the program was closed, and the powerful camera from Samos was adapted for use on the CORONA spacecraft and its return capsule. This device was called KH-6 LANYARD.
In 1963, three attempts were made to launch a new type of apparatus, but only one of them was successful. Therefore, as soon as the development of another device, known as GANBIT, began, the LANYARD project was closed.
The GAMBIT satellite carried a powerful telescope that used a mirror to focus the image onto a small strip of film. Another mirror looked sideways from the apparatus and reflected the Earth into the camera. As the satellite moved over the Earth, an image of the surface moved through the camera. The film was pulled past a small slit at the same speed as the image moved. This strip camera produced very high quality photographs that could be used to obtain technical data.
The first GAMBIT, known as KH-7, was launched in 1963 and the flight was considered a partial success. Over the next few missions, the spacecraft was improved. The first images from GAMBIT showed objects on Earth measuring about 1.1 meters, but within a few years satellite cameras were taking photographs revealing objects with a cross-sectional size of about 0.6 meters. The reflective mirror could also move slightly to change the angle of the image and produce stereo images, and the satellite could be tilted to one side or the other to target targets not directly below it.
However, the higher resolution was not easy for the GAMBIT satellite: its camera could only photograph small areas of the earth's surface. Therefore, reconnaissance satellites usually worked in pairs: CORONA identified targets, and GAMBIT photographed the most important of them.
By the mid-1960s, the United States was launching one CORONA and one GAMBIT satellite every month. Each satellite operated for about four days before shooting off its return capsule and returning the film to Earth.
Around the same time, a new model of spacecraft, known as the KN-4A, appeared with a second return vehicle, doubling the satellite's capabilities. CORONA now took images shortly after launch and landed the first return vehicle within four days. Then it went into sleep mode for several days, and then turned on and filmed again. New images were then delivered to Earth in a second capsule, doubling the amount of film returned at minimal additional cost.
The success of CORONA and problems with other types of satellites led the CIA to remain involved in satellite intelligence longer than originally planned. CIA involvement continued even after the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was created in the early 1960s to manage satellite reconnaissance programs.
In 1962, relations between the two intelligence agencies deteriorated sharply. In light of this, the CIA began several new satellite reconnaissance programs on its own, without the consent of the NRO. One of them was originally named FULCRUM, and then renamed KN-9 HEXAGON. The spacecraft created as part of this project was a massive satellite, about the size of a school bus. It was equipped with two powerful cameras, four or five return vehicles and required a powerful Titan-3 rocket to launch into orbit.
HEXAGON was intended to replace CORONA, and was already a success on its first flight in July 1971. His cameras made it possible to take photographs with a resolution of only 20 centimeters. Until the mid-1980s, 20 HEXAGON satellites were launched. Each of them, unlike the CORONA satellites with their short lifetime, remained in orbit for many months.
In 1967, the KN-7 GAMBIT satellites were replaced by a more advanced model known as KN-8. The new spacecraft had a more powerful camera, and in the 1970s it could already photograph objects smaller than 10 centimeters.
The KN-7 and early KH-8 models had only one recovery vehicle, but by 1969 a new model, the KH-8, was accepted into service, which carried two recovery vehicles.
The latest CORONA model is known as the KH-4B, and 17 of them were launched up to and including 1972. After this, they were finally decommissioned and replaced by HEXAGON.
The KN-8 GAMBIT satellites continued to fly until the mid-1980s and provided the highest quality photographs unsurpassed by any other aircraft.
Despite the obvious advantages, all of the above satellites had one significant drawback - they did not work fast enough. More precisely, it was not possible to obtain the results of reconnaissance activities, that is, photographic film, quickly enough on Earth. On average, photographs taken from orbit could reach the desk of analysts at the Pentagon no earlier than a week after the shooting. During these days the situation could have changed radically. For example, during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, one of the CORONA satellites took good photographs that showed that the entry of troops was about to begin. However, they arrived on Earth only when the deployment of troops had already begun.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the CIA and NRO explored various technologies for providing real-time space reconnaissance. However, all of them remained unusable until sensitive devices were created that could convert light directly into electrical energy. The first device of the new type was launched in 1976. The satellite was designated KN-11 KENNAN. It had a massive mirror with a CCD (short for charge-coupled device) at its focus. It turned light into electrical signals, which were converted into radio signals, which were then transmitted to Earth.
There was no longer a need for return capsules, but the KH-11 did not take large-area images like the HEXAGON, nor did it take exceptionally high-quality images like the KH-8. Therefore, both of these film delivery satellites remained in service for more than 10 years after KN-11 began operating.
Today's American reconnaissance satellites are the successors of the KH-11 project. But before we learn the details of their structure, about thirty years will pass...
It is very difficult to leave the solar system and fly to the stars. First, after spending a lot of fuel, you need to fly above the Earth into space. In this case, your speed relative to the Earth may turn out to be zero, but if you take off on time and in the right direction, then relative to the Sun you will fly along with the Earth, with its orbital speed relative to the Sun 30 km/s.
By turning on the additional engine in time and increasing the speed by another 17 km/s relative to the Earth, relative to the Sun you will get a speed of 30 + 17 = 47 km/s, which is called the third cosmic speed. It is sufficient to leave the solar system irrevocably. But fuel for a 17 km/s burst is expensive to deliver into orbit, and no spacecraft has yet reached escape velocity or left the solar system in this way. The fastest vehicle, New Horizons, flew to Pluto, turning on an additional engine in Earth orbit, but reached a speed of only 16.3 km/s.
A cheaper way to leave the solar system is to accelerate at the expense of the planets, approaching them, using them as tugs and gradually increasing speed around each. For this you need a certain one. the configuration of the planets is in a spiral - so that, when parting with the next planet, we fly to the next one. Due to the slowness of the most distant Uranus and Neptune, such a configuration occurs rarely, approximately once every 170 years. The last time Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune aligned in a spiral was in the 1970s. American scientists took advantage of this arrangement of planets and sent spacecraft beyond the solar system: Pioneer 10 (launched on March 3, 1972), Pioneer 11 (launched on April 6, 1973), Voyager 2 "(Voyager 2, launched August 20, 1977) and Voyager 1 (Voyager 1, launched September 5, 1977).
By the beginning of 2015, all four devices had moved away from the Sun to the border of the Solar System. Pioneer 10 has a speed of 12 km/s relative to the Sun and is located at a distance of about 113 AU from it. e. (astronomical units, the average distance from the Sun to the Earth), which is approximately 17 billion km. Pioneer 11 - at a speed of 11.4 km/s at a distance of 92 AU, or 13.8 billion km. Voyager 1- at a speed of about 17 km/s at a distance of 130.3 AU, or 19.5 billion km (this is the farthest object created by people from the Earth and the Sun). Voyager 2- at a speed of 15 km/s at a distance of 107 a. e„or 16 billion km. But these devices are still very far from flying to the stars: the neighboring star Proxima Centauri is 2,000 times further away from the Voyager 1 spacecraft. And do not forget that the stars are small, and the distances between them are large. Therefore, all devices that are not launched specifically to specific stars (and there are no such ones yet) are unlikely to ever fly near the stars. Of course, by cosmic standards, “approaches” can be considered: the flyby of Pioneer 10 2 million years in the future at a distance of several light years from the star Aldebaran, Voyager 1 - 40 thousand years in the future at a distance of two light years from stars AC+79 3888 in the constellation Giraffe and Voyager 2 - 40 thousand years in the future at a distance of two light years from the star Ross 248.
It is important to know:
Third escape velocity- the minimum speed that must be given to an object near the Earth in order for it to leave the Solar System. Equal to 17 km/s relative to the Earth and 47 km/s relative to the Sun.
sunny wind- the flow of energetic protons, electrons and other particles from the Sun into outer space.
Heliosphere- a region of space near the Sun where the solar wind, moving at a speed of about 300 km/s, is the most energetic component of the space environment.
Everything we know about space beyond the solar system we learn by analyzing the radiation (light) and gravity of space objects. In this case, many assumptions have to be made. For example, we determine the mass of a black hole by assuming the masses of the stars circling around it. We assume their masses, considering that these stars are similar to the Sun.
“Pioneers” and “Voyagers” are the only experiments so far without any assumptions that we have organized at the edge (and in the future, beyond) the Solar System. Direct experiment is a completely different matter! We know the masses of these devices - we manufactured them, so we accurately calculate the mass of any object that affects the devices. You will say: “There are no such things, the devices fly in the interplanetary and interstellar void.” But it turned out that this is not emptiness: even specks of dust knocking on the devices significantly change their trajectory. There is always a lot of mysticism in unique experiments, and the history of the Pioneers and Voyagers is full of it.
The first strange thing: on August 15, 1977, a few days before the launch of the most distant devices, the most mysterious radio signal “Wow!” was caught. Perhaps, with its help, the aliens informed each other about an important event - the impending exit of people beyond the solar system?
What successes did Voyager and Pioneer achieve on their way to the edge of the solar system?
On the way to the edge of the solar system, Pioneer 10 explored asteroids and became the first vehicle to fly near Jupiter. And it immediately puzzled scientists: the energy emitted by Jupiter into space turned out to be 2.5 times greater than the energy received by Jupiter from the Sun. And the largest satellites of Jupiter turned out to consist not of rocks, but mainly of ice. After 2003, contact with Pioneer 10 was lost. Pioneer 11 also explored Jupiter and later became the first spacecraft to explore Saturn. In 1995, contact with Pioneer 11 was lost.
Devices " Voyager“They still work and report to scientists about the state of space around them. After 37 years of flying! This can also be considered mystical, since no one expected it to work for such a long time: they even had to reprogram the time counter inside the Voyager on-board computers - it was not designed for dates after 2007. Inside the devices, energy is generated by radioisotope generators that use the nuclear reaction of the decay of plutonium-238 - like in nuclear power plants. This energy should be enough for another tens of years.
The main equipment turned out to be more reliable than the creators expected. The main problem is the fading of radio communication signals with the removal of devices. Now the signal from the devices to the Earth travels (at the speed of light) for more than 16 hours! But deep space communications antennas, giant “dishes” almost the size of a football field, manage to catch Voyager signals. Voyager's transmitter power is 28 watts, about 100 times more powerful than a cell phone. And the signal power drops in proportion to the square of the distance. It is easy to calculate that hearing the Voyager signal is like hearing a cell phone from Saturn (without any cellular stations!).
On their way to the edge of the solar system, the Voyagers flew past Jupiter and Saturn and obtained detailed images of their moons. Voyager 2 In addition, it flew past Uranus and Neptune, becoming the first and only vehicle to visit these planets. The Voyagers confirmed the mysteries discovered by the Pioneers: many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn turned out to be not only icy, but also apparently containing bodies of water under the ice.
Boundary of the Solar System
The boundary of the solar system can be defined in different ways. The gravitational boundary passes where the Sun's gravity is balanced by the Galaxy's gravity - at a distance of about 0.5 parsecs, or 100,000 AU. from the sun. But changes begin much closer. We know for sure that there are no large planets further than Neptune, but there are many dwarf planets, as well as comets and other small bodies of the Solar System, consisting mainly of ice. Apparently, at a distance of 1000 to 100,000 AU. from the Sun The solar system is surrounded on all sides by a swarm of lumps of snow, comets - the so-called Oort cloud. Perhaps it extends to neighboring stars. In general, snowflakes, dust particles and gases, hydrogen and helium, are probably typical components of the interstellar medium. This means that there is not empty space between the stars!
It is important to know:
Shock wave boundary- the boundary surface inside the heliosphere far from the Sun, where the solar wind sharply slows down due to its collision with the interstellar medium.
Heliopause- the boundary at which the solar wind is completely inhibited by the galactic stellar wind and other components of the interstellar medium.
Galactic stellar wind (cosmic rays)- streams of energetic particles (protons, electrons and others) similar to the solar wind, arising in stars and penetrating our Galaxy.
Another boundary is defined by the solar wind, the flow of energetic particles from the Sun: the region where it dominates is called the heliosphere. Other stars also create such a wind, so somewhere the solar wind must meet the combined wind of the stars of the Galaxy - the galactic stellar wind, or in other words, cosmic rays - flying into the Solar System. In a collision with the galactic stellar wind, the solar wind is decelerated and loses energy. Where it goes is not entirely clear. In this collision of winds, mysterious phenomena should arise, which in recent years have been encountered by devices Voyager.
As scientists expected, at some distance from the Sun the solar wind began to subside - this is the so-called shock wave boundary, the boundary of the heliosphere. Voyager 1 crossed it several times, because... she turned out to be very confused. By December 2010, at a distance of 17.4 billion km from the Sun, the solar wind had completely died down for Voyager 1. Instead, a powerful blow of interstellar, galactic wind was felt: by 2012, the number of electrons colliding with the device from interstellar space increased 100 times. Accordingly, a powerful electric current and the magnetic field it creates appeared. Apparently, Voyager 1 has reached the heliopause. However, contrary to expectations, the device does not detect a clear boundary between two colliding streams of particles, but a chaotic accumulation of huge bubbles. Flows of particles on their surfaces create powerful electric currents and magnetic fields.
Voyager and Pioneer - messages to aliens
All mentioned devices carry messages for aliens. Metal plates are fixed on board the Pioneers, on which are schematically depicted: the device itself; on the same scale - man and woman; two hydrogen atoms as a measure of time and length; Sun and planets (including Pluto); the trajectory of the device from Earth past Jupiter and a kind of cosmic map that shows directions from Earth, 14 pulsars and the center of the Galaxy. Pulsars, rapidly rotating neutron stars, are quite rare in the Galaxy, and the frequency of their radiation is a unique characteristic, a kind of “passport” of each of them. This frequency is encoded on the Pioneer plate. Consequently, a cosmic map with pulsars will clearly show aliens where the Solar System is located in the Galaxy. Moreover, over time, the frequency of the pulsar changes quite naturally, and by checking the current frequency with that indicated on the map, the aliens will be able to determine how much time has passed since the launch of the Pioneer apparatus they found.
On board the devices Voyager gold records in cases are installed. The records contain the sounds of the Earth (wind, thunder, crickets, birds, train, tractor, etc.), greetings in different languages (in Russian “Hello, I greet you”), music (Bach, Chuck Berry, Mozart, Louis Armstrong, Beethoven, Stravinsky and folklore) and 122 images (on mathematics, physics, chemistry, planets, human anatomy, human life, etc. - a complete list can be found on the NASA website http://www.ipl.nasa.gov /spacecraft/goldenrec.html. Included is a device for reproducing these sounds and images. On the record case is a drawing in which are encoded: two hydrogen atoms for the time scale and length; the same cosmic map with pulsars and an explanation of how to reproduce the sounds and images.
Anomaly "Pioneers"
In 1997, a few months after the Pioneer 11 signal disappeared, one of the scientists, analyzing the data, jumped out of his chair shouting: “We are not allowed outside the solar system!” He discovered the deceleration of the device after it crossed the orbit of Jupiter. The same braking was found in Pioneer 10 and the Ulysses and Galileo spacecraft that flew to Jupiter. Only the Voyagers did not experience braking, since at the slightest deviation from the flight schedule they accelerated with their engines. Particular excitement arose around the Pioneer braking when it turned out that it was equal to the Hubble constant multiplied by the speed of light. It turns out that the devices lose energy (slow down) in the same way as radiation particles (photons). And version No. 1: if photons lose energy due to the expansion of the Universe, then the “Pioneers” lose energy for the same reason. Other explanations: 2) scientists did not take into account some completely prosaic source of energy loss (then, however, the coincidence with the Hubble constant is purely accidental) or 3) the Universe is filled with a substance that takes away energy when moving through it from both the Pioneers and photons.
By cosmic standards, the “braking of the Pioneers” is a very small value: 1/1 OOO OOO OOO m/s2. Every day the device flies 1.5 kilometers less than the required million kilometers! To explain this, scientists spent 15 years trying to take into account all other losses of energy and matter, all the forces acting on the devices. But the search for explanation No. 2 failed. True, the American scientist Slava Turishchev discovered that heat is dissipated by devices mainly away from the Sun, i.e. into the shadow - this is the immediate reason for the Pioneers’ braking. A particle of thermal radiation (photon) has momentum, therefore, leaving an object, the radiation creates jet thrust in the opposite direction (projects of annihilation photon engines for interstellar rockets are based on this). But the mystery remains: WHAT exactly makes the devices dissipate heat so much? And most importantly - devices of different designs!
Analyzing what the devices interact with in seemingly empty space, scientists discovered that cosmic dust particles and pieces of ice often knock on them. The devices were able to determine the direction and strength of these impacts. It turned out that the Solar System is permeated by two types of small solid particles: some fly around the Sun, others fly towards the Sun from interstellar distances. It is the latter that slow down spacecraft. Upon impact, the kinetic energy of a dust particle becomes internal, i.e., heat. If a speck of dust is stopped by the apparatus (which is logical), then all its momentum is transferred to the apparatus. And its energy dissipates in the direction of its arrival, i.e. in the direction from the Sun. The devices recorded many impacts from relatively large dust particles - about 10 microns. And to explain the braking of the Pioneers, it is enough for them to hit such dust particles on average every 10 km of the journey. This is exactly the density of dust in interstellar space that modern infrared telescopes have seen.
In general, the outer regions of the Solar System (behind Saturn) turned out to be dusty, snow-covered and gassed much more than the inner ones. Near the Sun, dust grains, snowflakes and gas once clung together into planets, satellites and asteroids. A lot of matter settled on the Sun. But most of the dust particles, pieces of ice and gas atoms were expelled by the Sun to the periphery of the system. In addition, interstellar dust, generated in the shells of other stars, penetrates to the periphery. This means that beyond Neptune and further in interstellar and intergalactic space there should be even more dust particles, ice floes and gas. It is quite possible that the interstellar medium, which uniformly fills the Universe, actually takes away energy from both spacecraft and photons. The main role here is played by large (10 micron) grains of dust and ice, as well as hydrogen molecules, which do not manifest themselves in any other way.
Please enable JavaScript to view theJupiter of the American automatic interplanetary station Juno ("Juno" is the English reading of the name Juno). It took her about five years to reach the planet.
Juno became the second spacecraft launched from Earth (launched in August 2011) to enter Jupiter orbit. The first was the American Galileo spacecraft, which entered orbit around the planet in 1995.
Jupiter
- Jupiter is the fifth planet of the solar system; its structure is a gas giant.
- The average distance from the Sun is about 779 million km.
- The diameter of the planet at the equator is about 143 thousand km.
- Jupiter is approximately 317 times the size of Earth and 2.5 times more massive than all the planets in the solar system combined.
- Named after the supreme god in Greco-Roman mythology.
- The first study of the planet using a telescope was carried out in 1610 by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, he discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter (later named Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto).
- In total, Jupiter has 67 satellites, most of them less than 10 km in diameter.
Project history
The name of the Juno probe is borrowed from Greco-Roman mythology: Juno was the name of the wife of the god Jupiter. According to legend, in order to hide his misdeeds, Jupiter wrapped himself in a curtain of clouds. However, this did not prevent his wife, who was observing Jupiter from Mount Olympus, from looking deep into the veil and seeing the true essence of her husband.
Work on the project has been carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since June 2005 as part of the New Frontiers Program. The spacecraft was manufactured by the American company Lockheed Martin (Lockheed Martin; Bethesda, Maryland).
The scientific leadership of the project is provided by the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, California). The flight control of the interplanetary vehicle is carried out from the Space Flight Center. George Marshall (Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama).
The total project budget was estimated at approximately US$1 billion in 2008; later information has not been published.
The purpose of the mission is to understand the origin of Jupiter, test the hypothesis that it has a solid core, establish the nature of the aurora on the planet, obtain data on its magnetic field, and explore the atmosphere.
Characteristics
The spacecraft has the shape of a hexagonal prism. Height - 3.5 m, diameter - about 3.5 m, weight - 3 thousand 625 kg. Equipped with three solar panels (each 8.9 m long). The total energy output is 490 watts at the beginning of the mission and 420 watts at the end of the mission.
On board Juno there are nine scientific instruments, including a microwave radiometer that will be able to study the deep layers of the atmosphere - up to 500 km; with its help it is planned to obtain data on the amount of water and ammonia in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Instruments for precise analysis of the planet’s magnetic field and the study of its poles, as well as a color camera with a resolution of 1 thousand 600 by 1 thousand 200 pixels, were also installed.
In addition, on board the automatic station there is a plaque with the image of Galileo Galilei and an inscription with the scientist’s words about the discovery of objects that later became known as the Galilean satellites.
Launch and flight
The launch of the interplanetary station was carried out on August 5, 2011 from the launch site at Cape Canaveral (Florida) using an Atlas V launch vehicle (Atlas-5).
In October 2013, a gravity assist maneuver was carried out to fly around the Earth to accelerate the spacecraft. As a result, Juno's speed increased to 40 thousand km/h.
On July 5, 2016, after almost a five-year journey, the interplanetary probe approached Jupiter and entered the planet’s orbit.
It is planned that Juno will be in the polar orbit of Jupiter at an altitude of 4-5 thousand km for 20 months - until February 2018. During this time, the probe should make 37 orbits around the planet. At the end of the mission, it will deorbit and burn up in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Exploration of Jupiter by other spacecraft
Before the Juno interplanetary station, the only spacecraft that entered Jupiter orbit was Galileo (Galileo, USA). It was launched in 1989 from the American reusable spacecraft Atlantis and reached the planet in 1995. Until 2003, Galileo studied the planet and its large satellites, moving from one orbit to another. In addition, a probe was released from the spacecraft into the atmosphere of Jupiter, which, descending by parachute, transmitted data for more than an hour until it collapsed due to pressure.
In addition to Galileo, 7 more spacecraft flew near Jupiter, all of them were created in the USA. Pioneer 10 (“Pioneer-10”) in 1973 passed at a distance of 132 thousand km from the planet (data on the composition of the atmosphere were obtained, the mass of Jupiter was clarified, etc.).
A year later, in 1974, Pioneer 11, flying at a distance of about 40 thousand km, was able to transmit detailed images of Jupiter. In 1979, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 passed close to the planet, then Ulysses (Ulysses - the English reading of the name Ulysses; twice - in 1992 and 2004) and Cassini. ; 2000).
The last to approach was New Horizons ("New Horizons", "New Horizons"): following to Pluto, the interplanetary apparatus in February 2007 performed a gravitational maneuver in the vicinity of Jupiter and photographed it.
