Spacecraft Launched facts
While investigating facts about Spacecraft Launched, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The alignment of planets in our solar system that allowed us to launch Voyager spacecraft out of our solar system at the speed it went only happens once every 176 years
The spacecraft Solar Probe Plus which is scheduled to be launched in 2018 will achieve a speed of 432,000 mph, making it the fastest man made object ever built.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Spacecraft Launched I managed to collect.
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The fastest man made object ever made (at 157,078 mph) is Helios 2, a spacecraft launched in 1976, currently orbiting the Sun.
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Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched 40 years and two months ago, is only 19:35:13 light hours from Earth. It will reach a distance of 1 light day on Feb 18 2027.
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A small town in Kansas has one of the largest space museums in the world, including Liberty Bell 7, the Apollo 13 command module, the Gemini X spacecraft, Vostok and Voshkod spacecraft, an SR-71, Nazi V1 and V2 weapons, and several full-scale launch rockets
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The crawler transport, used by NASA to move their spacecraft to the launch sites, gets about 42 ft per gallon of diesel.
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When New Horizons launched, it became the fastest moving spacecraft ever built. When it's last engine shut down, it had already exceeded the solar system's escape velocity, and it passed the moon in just under 9 hours after launch.
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NASA conceived of a plan to launch spacecraft out of a hole in the top of a mountain. The combination of a rocket sled, combined with the thin atmosphere could have led to a quick insertion for low orbit satellites.
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In 1998, planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker's ashes and epitaph were launched into space on the Lunar Prospector spacecraft, where they landed on the moon as intended on July 31, 1999. He is the only human to have remains on any celestial body aside from Earth.
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The tower on top of the Apollo spacecraft contained a launch escape system, which could eject the crew module safely away from an imminent rocket explosion. The tower contained a solid-fueled rocket and used the craft's parachutes to get the crew to safety.
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A man named Roger Boisjoly and his colleagues tried to stop the Space Shuttle Challenger from launching the day before the loss of the spacecraft and its crew in January 1986.
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A NASA spacecraft named JUNO was launched from Florida in 2011, traveled past the orbit of Mars, flew all the way back to Earth for a slingshot gravity assist in 2013, and then sailed at high speed toward Jupiter—where it will arrive on July 4, 2016.
The first spacecraft to reach another planet was launched from Kazakhstan. - source
‘Space Burials’. The ashes of the deceased are launched into orbit around the Earth (for several months or so) and then the spacecraft containing the ashes re-enters the Earth, burning up like a shooting star for a final farewell. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a similar ‘burial’. - source
Many spacecraft have visited Europa; however, no spacecraft has yet landed. Launched in 1989, the Galileo spacecraft did a long-term mission at Jupiter and its moons which provided all the current data.
Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 but died 9 years prior the mission to visit Pluto. At Tombaugh's request some of his ashes and a short message were include on the New Horizons spacecraft which was launched to explore Pluto in 2006. - source
In 2006 a spacecraft called New Horizons was launched to explore the Kuiper belt. It flew past Pluto on July 14th, 2015.
By the time Pioneer 11, launched in 1973, became the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn in 1979, both of the next-generation Voyager probes had already passed Jupiter.
About Soviet Space dog, Laika - a stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow, selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on 3 November 1957
In 2013 we lost contact with the Deep Impact spacecraft due to a Y2k bug, even though it wasn't launched until 2005.
The Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched two weeks earlier than Voyager 1