Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board.Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in orbit around Earth, but also includes space probes for flights beyond Earth orbit.
Space launch is the earliest part of a flight that reaches space. Space launch involves liftoff , when a rocket or other space launch vehicle leaves the ground, floating ship or midair aircraft at the start of a flight.
Interplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is the crewed or uncrewed travel between stars and planets, usually within a single planetary system. [1] In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System.
An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth , it must be on a free trajectory which has an altitude at perigee (altitude at closest approach) around 80 kilometers (50 mi); this is the boundary of ...
The term “space plane” often evokes NASA’s Space Shuttle, which flew 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, carrying astronauts into orbit and helping to construct the International Space Station.
The period between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the first launch into space of SpaceShipTwo Flight VP-03 on 13 December 2018 is similar to the gap between the end of Apollo in 1975 and the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981, and is referred to by a presidential Blue Ribbon Committee as the U.S. human spaceflight gap.
Axiom Space is one of the few companies constructing a private space station, intended to eventually replace the International Space Station (ISS), which the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space ...
A space vehicle's flight is determined by application of Newton's second law of motion: =, where F is the vector sum of all forces exerted on the vehicle, m is its current mass, and a is the acceleration vector, the instantaneous rate of change of velocity (v), which in turn is the instantaneous rate of change of displacement.