Solar System Exploration: Historical

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Solar System Exploration Historical
Viking - Mars
Mars Pathfinder Global Surveyor
Apollo - Moon
Magellan -Venus
Voyager Outer Planets
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Space Exploration Starts during the Cold War
Soviet Union launches first satellite, Sputnik,
in 1957. At the height of the Cold War in 1961,
the Soviets put first human, Yuri Gargarin, in
Earth orbit. Six weeks later President Kennedy
declared in a speech to Congress "I believe
this nation should commit itself to achieving the
goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man
on the Moon and returning him safely to the
Earth. No single space project in this period
will be more impressive to mankind, or more
important for the long-range exploration of
space, and none will be so difficult or expensive
to accomplish."
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Precursors to Apollo
Surveyor Project Soft landings on Moon and
surface properties. 1966-1968
Ranger Project Photos of lunar surface and crash
landings. 1964-1965
Surveyor Landing Sites
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Soviet Luna and Zond Series
24 Luna Missions (1959-1976) Earliest lunar
missions, culminating in several robotic rover
and sample return missions.
5 Zond Missions (1965-1970)
Precursor to human missions. Round-trips to Moon
and back with animals and other biological matter.
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Pre-Apollo Human Orbital Missions

Project Gemini
Project Mercury

• 10 manned flights 1965-1966
• Subject man and equipment to space-flight up to 2
  weeks in duration.
• Rendezvous and dock with orbiting vehicles and to
  maneuver the docked combination.
• Perfect methods of entering the atmosphere and
  landing at a pre-selected point on land

• Six manned flights from 1961-1963
• Orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth.
• Investigate man's ability to function in space.
• Recover both man and spacecraft safely.

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Apollo Program
1963-1972
The Apollo program was designed to land humans on
the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth.
Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16,
and 17) achieved this goal.

• Scientific accomplishments
• 390 kilograms of lunar samples returned to Earth
• Experiments on soil mechanics, meteoroids,
  seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic
  fields, and solar wind experiments.

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Top Ten Discoveries from Lunar Samples
1. The Moon is not a primordial object -- it is
a differentiated terrestrial planet made of
igneous rock.    2. The Moon has an ancient
crust that preserves its early history impact
crater record has been calibrated using absolute
ages of rock samples.    3. The youngest Moon
rocks are virtually as old as the oldest Earth
rocks. The earliest processes and events that
probably affected both planetary bodies can now
only be found on the Moon.     4. The Moon and
Earth may be genetically related and formed from
different proportions of a common reservoir of
astromaterials -- the Moon is highly depleted in
iron and in volatile elements that are needed to
form atmospheric gases and water.   5. The Moon
is lifeless it contains no living organisms,
fossils, or native organic compounds. 6. All
Moon rocks originated through high-temperature
processes with little or no involvement with
water. They are roughly divisible into three
types basalts, anorthosites, and breccias.    7.
Early in its history, the Moon was melted to
great depths to form a magma ocean. The lunar
highlands contain the remnants of early, low
density rocks that floated to the surface of the
magma ocean.     8. The lunar magma ocean was
followed by a series of huge asteroid impacts
that created basins which were later filled by
lava flows.     9. The surface of the Moon is
covered by a rubble pile of rock fragments and
dust, called the lunar regolith, produced by
innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic
time.   10. The regolith contains a unique
radiation history of the Sun to a degree of
completeness that we are unlikely to find
elsewhere.  
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Apollo
Orbiting Command Module
Saturn V
Rover
Lunar Module
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Thirteen Saturn V Launches
Approximate Cost 2.4-3.5 Billion per launch
(2007 money)
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Apollo 4 1967 First test flight, complete success
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40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 July 20, 1969-2009
Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, photo taken by
Neil Armstrong
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Launch Vehicles
Space Shuttle
Saturn V
Ares I
Ares V
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Lunar Landing Sites
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Human Space Flight in Low Earth Orbit for the
last 36 years
Space Shuttle Program 1981-present
Apollo 18-20 Cancelled
International Space Station 1998-present
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Early Venus Flybys and Probes
Venera 4 1967
Mariner 2 1962
Mariner 5 1967
Venera 5,6 1969
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Mariner 4 1965 Mars Flyby
First picture clearly showing craters on Mars
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Mariner 71969 Flyby
Olympus Mons
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Venera 7 1970
First soft landing on Venus
Venera 7 was launched from a Tyazheliy Sputnik in
an earth parking orbit towards Venus to study the
Venusian atmosphere and other phenomena of the
planet. Venera 7 entered the atmosphere of Venus
on December 15, 1970, and a landing capsule was
jettisoned. After aerodynamic braking, a
parachute system was deployed. The capsule
antenna was extended, and signals were returned
for 35 min. Another 23 min of very weak signals
were received after the spacecraft landed on
Venus. The capsule was the first man-made object
to return data after landing on another planet.
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Mariner 91971 Mars Flyby
Olympus Mons
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Soviet Mars 2,3 First Orbiter and Soft Landing on
Mars 1971
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Pioneer 10,11 1972-73
FIRST TO JUPITER, SATURN, AND BEYOND
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The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch
gold-anodized aluminum plate. The radiating lines
at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a
cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to
indicate our sun as the home star of our
civilization. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a
"universal clock," and the regular decrease in
the frequencies of the pulsars will enable
another civilization to determine the time that
has elapsed since Pioneer was launched. The
hydrogen is also used as a "universal yardstick"
for sizing the human figures and outline of the
spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen
wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by the
binary number representing "8" shown next to the
woman gives her height, 64 inches. The figures
represent the type of creature that created
Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of
good will. Across the bottom are the planets,
ranging outward from the Sun, with the spacecraft
trajectory arching away from Earth, passing Mars,
and swinging by Jupiter. The plaque was designed
by Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University and drawn
by his wife, Linda Salzman Sagan.
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Venera Lander Images of Venus
Venera 9 1975 53 min. surface operation
Venera 10 1975 65 min. surface operation
Venera 13 1982 2 hrs 7 min. surface operation
Venera 14 1982 60 min. surface operation
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Viking Mission1976

• Two spacecraft
• Viking 1 and Viking 2, each consisting of an
  orbiter and a lander.
• Primary mission objectives
• High resolution images of the Martian surface
• Characterize the structure and composition of the
  atmosphere and surface
• Search for evidence of life

Mission Cost 1 Billion (3.81 Billion in 2007)

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Viking Orbiters
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Viking Landers
(1) Chryse Planitia
(2) Utopia Planitia
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Exobiology Experiments
Measure the production and/or uptake of CO2, N2,
CH4, H2, and O2 during incubation of a soil sample
Detect the photosynthetic or chemical fixation of
CO2 or CO containing C-14
Detect metabolic processes through
radiorespirometry
Positive response in experiment Positive response
in control
Positive response in experiment Positive response
in control
Positive response in experiment Negative response
in control
Positive responses were attributed to highly
oxidized Martian soil (inorganic reactions).
Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer detected no
organic carbon at the parts per billion level.
After M.Caplinger
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Voyager Project
Voyager 1 was launched September 5, 1977, and
flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979 and by Saturn
on November 13, 1980. Voyager 2 was launched
August 20, 1977 and flew by Jupiter on August 7,
1979, by Saturn on August 26, 1981, by Uranus on
January 24, 1986, and by Neptune on August 8,
1989.
Voyager Spacecraft
Cost 865 million 3.12 Billion in FY2007
dollars
Jupiter
Saturn
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Voyager
Jupiters Great Red Spot
Active volcanism on Io
Saturns Rings
Neptunes Great Dark Spot
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Voyager
As of July 2007, Voyager 1 was at a distance of
15.4 Billion Kilometers (103 AU) from the sun and
Voyager 2 at a distance of 12.4 Billion
kilometers (83 AU). Both spacecraft are still
sending scientific information about their
surroundings through the Deep Space Network (DSN).
Golden Record
Interstellar Mission
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The contents of the record were selected for NASA
by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan who
assembled 115 images and a variety of natural
sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and
thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs
of birds and whales. To this they added musical
selections from different cultures and eras, and
spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five
languages, and printed messages from President
Jimmy Carter and UN Secretary-General Kurt
Waldheim.
After NASA had received criticism over nudity on
the Pioneer plaque the agency chose not to allow
Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph
of a nude man and a nude, pregnant woman on the
record. President Carter's official statement
placed on the space craft We cast this message
into the cosmos Of the 200 billion stars in the
Milky Way galaxy, some perhaps many may have
inhabited planets and space faring civilizations.
If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and
can understand these recorded contents, here is
our message We are trying to survive our time so
we may live into yours. We hope some day, having
solved the problems we face, to join a community
of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents
our hope and our determination and our goodwill
in a vast and awesome universe.
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Pioneer Venus 1978
Orbiter
Venus Atmosphere
Venus Topography
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Comet Flybys
International Cometary Explorer 1978 Giacobini-Zi
nner, Halley
Suisei Comet' 1985 Halley
Sakigake 'Pioneer' 1985 Halley
Giotto image of Comet Halley Nucleus 600 km
Giotto (ESA) 1985 Halley
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Magellan 1989-1994
The primary objectives of the mission were to map
the surface of Venus with a synthetic aperture
radar (SAR) and to determine the topographic
relief of the planet. At the completion of radar
mapping 98 of the surface was imaged at
resolutions better than 100 m, and many areas
were imaged multiple times.
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Magellan
Volcanic "pancake" domes in Tinatin Planitia,
Venus
At 280 km diameter, Mead Crater is the largest
impact crater on Venus.
Computer generated 3-dimensional perspective view
of the "crater farm"
3-dimensional image of Sapas Mons a 1.5 km high
volcano
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Galileo 1989-2003
Jupiter and its Moons
VEEGA (Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist) 6 year
journey
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Galileo
Ganymede
Voyager Image
Galileo Image
Europa
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Galileo
Io
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Galileo
Moon
Venus
Jupiters Great Red Spot
Earth
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Mars Observer 1992
Contact with Mars Observer was lost on August 21,
1993, three days before scheduled orbit
insertion, for unknown reasons and has not been
re-established.
Mission Cost 1 billion
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Faster, Cheaper, Better
Dan Goldin NASA Administrator 1992-2001
Successes
Failures
Mars Pathfinder Discovery Near
Mars Climate Orbiter Mars Polar Lander
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Mars Pathfinder 1996 (20 years after Viking)
Total Mission Cost 265 million
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Mars Pathfinder
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Mars Meteorite ALH84001
1996 McKay et al.

• ALH84001 Discovery
• Organic molecules of Martian origin
• Mineral features characteristic of biological
  activity
• Possible microscopic fossils of primitive,
  bacteria-like organisms

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Mars Surveyor Program
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Mars Program
Launch opportunity every 26 months
New Plan 2001 Odyssey Orbiter (at Mars) 2003 Mars
Exploration Rovers (at Mars) 2005 Reconnaissance
Orbiter (at Mars) 2007 Phoenix Lander (at
Mars) 2011 Mars Science Lab (being built) 2018
Mars Sample Return (still a plan)
Old Architecture 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter
(Crashed) 1999 Mars Polar Lander (Crashed) 2001
Mars Orbiter/Lander (Lander Mothballed) 2003 Mars
sample in orbit (Postponed) 2005/2008 Mars
Sample Return (Postponed)