Download Space Exploration Cards KEY

Grade 6
Science
Unit: 08 Lesson: 03
Space Exploration Cards KEY
Refer to the Resources and References section of the lesson for information sources.
These are sample answers that may be found from various resources.
1942 - Germany launched the first
rocket to reach 100 km from the
Earth’s surface (the boundary of
space).
1957 - Sputnik 1, the first man-made
object to orbit the Earth, is launched
by the U.S.S.R.
Sputnik 2, carrying the dog Laika for 7
days in orbit, is launched.
1959 - Luna 1, first man-made satellite
to orbit the Moon, is launched by the
U.S.S.R.
Luna 3 satellite is launched, orbiting
the Moon and photographing 70
percent of the far side of the Moon.
1961 - Vostok 1 is launched by the
U.S.S.R., carrying Cosmonaut Yuri A.
Gargarin, the first man in space. He
orbited the Earth once.
1963 - Vostok 6 carries Soviet
Cosmonaut Valentia Tereshkova, the
first woman in space and orbits the
Earth 48 times.
1947 - The first animals were launched
into space. Fruit flies were used to
study the effects of space travel on
animals. The flies traveled with a
supply of corn to eat on the flight.
1958 - Explorer 1, the first U.S.
satellite in orbit, lifts off at Cape
Canaveral FL. It carries a scientific
experiment from James A. Van Allen,
and discovers the Earth's radiation
belt.
1959 - Pioneer 4 space probe was
launched and passed within 37,000
miles of the Moon. It then fell into a
solar orbit, becoming the first U.S. Sun
orbiter.
1949 - Albert II was the first monkey in
space. He was a Rhesus monkey.
Albert went into space and flew to a
height of 83 miles above the Earth.
1962 - Mercury Friendship 7 lifts off
with John H. Glenn, Jr., the first
American in orbit, and orbits the Earth
three times.
1964 - U.S. Ranger 7 relays the first
close-range photographs of the Moon.
1962 - U.S. Mariner 2, the first
successful planetary spacecraft, flies
past Venus and enters a solar orbit.
1965 - Ranger 9 transmits high-quality
images of the Moon, many of which
were shown live in the first television
spectacular about the Moon.
1965 - U.S. Mariner 4 returns the first
close-range images about Mars.
1967 - Venera 4 sends a descent
capsule into the atmosphere of Venus,
returning data about its composition.
1968 - Apollo 8 is launched with Frank
Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and
William A. Anders. The first Apollo to
use the Saturn V rocket and the first
manned spacecraft to orbit the Moon,
making 10 orbits on its 6-day mission.
1969 - Mariner 6 returns highresolution images of the Martian
surface, concentrating on the
equatorial region.
1969 - Neil Armstrong and Edwin
Aldrin, Jr. make the first manned soft
landing on the Moon and the first
moonwalk, using Apollo 11.
Mariner 7 returns high-resolution
images of the Martian surface,
concentrating on the southern
hemisphere.
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11/06/12
1958 - N.A.S.A. is founded, taking over
existing National Advisory Committee
on Aeronautics.
1960 - Tiros 1, the first successful
weather satellite, is launched by the
U.S.
Discoverer XIV launches the first U.S.
camera-equipped spy satellite.
1965 - The first spacewalk is made
from Soviet Voskhod 2 by Cosmonaut
Alexei A. Leonov. The duration is 12
minutes.
Edward White II makes the first U.S.
space walk from Gemini 4. The
duration is 22 minutes.
1966 - Soviet Luna 10 is the first
spacecraft to orbit the Moon.
U.S. Lunar Orbiter 1 enters the Moon
orbit and takes the first picture of the
Earth from the distance of the Moon.
1969 - Soyuz 4 & 5 perform the first
Soviet spaceship docking, transferring
Cosmonauts between vehicles.
1970 - Luna 17 lands on the Moon,
with the first automatic robot,
Lunokhod 1. Driven by a five-man
team on Earth, it traveled over surface
for 11 days.
Soviet Venera 7 is the first probe to
soft-land on Venus, transmitting for 23
minutes.
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Grade 6
Science
Unit: 08 Lesson: 03
1971 - Apollo 14 Moon mission is
launched by the U.S. with Alan
Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar
Mitchell on board. They land in the Fra
Mauro highlands, which they explore
with the help of a two-wheeled cart that
permits the transport of a greater
quantity of lunar material than previous
missions. Shepard becomes the first
man to hit a golf ball on the Moon
1971 - The United States launches
Mariner 9, which becomes the first
spacecraft to survey Mars from orbit.
The next year, Apollo 17 astronaut
Harrison Schmitt drives a similar rover.
American Mariner 9 is the first
spacecraft to orbit another planet,
Mars. Over the next year, it maps 100
percent of the Martian surface.
1972 - Pioneer 10 is launched towards
Jupiter by the U.S., designed to
familiarize alien life with humans. It
returns the first close-up images of
Jupiter in 1973.
Pioneer 10 becomes the first manmade object to travel through the
asteroid belt.
Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and
James Irwin drive the first Moon rover.
1973 - Pioneer 11 is launched and flies
past Jupiter in 1974 and Saturn in
1979, where it discovers new rings.
1974 - NASA launches the first
Synchronous Meteorological Satellite.
Skylab Workshop is launched by the
U.S. and maintained by three crews.
Soviet Venera 9 and 10 send the first
pictures of the Venusian surface to
Earth.
American Mariner 10 is launched on
the first dual-planet mission. Over the
next year, it returned photographs of
Venus and Mercury.
1976 - Viking 2 lands on Mars on the
Plain of Utopia, where it discovered
water frost.
1977 - Voyagers 1 and 2 leave Earth to
meet with Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in
1980.
1979 - Pioneer 11 reaches Saturn,
flying to within 13,000 miles and taking
the first close-up photographs.
1981 - The first manned mission of the
Space Transportation System (Shuttle),
Columbia, is launched.
1983 - Sally K. Ride is the first U.S.
woman to travel in space, on
Challenger.
1983 - The Infrared Astronomical
Satellite finds new comets, asteroids,
galaxies, and a dust ring around the
star Vega that may be new planets.
Space shuttle Columbia carries the
Spacelab-1 into orbit.
Soviet Venera 15 returns the first highresolution images of the Venus polar
area and compiled a thermal map of
most of the northern hemisphere.
1985 - The Sakigake probe is launched
by Japan's Institute of Space and
Aeronautical Science, becoming the
first interplanetary probe as it
rendezvous with Halley's Comet.
European Space Agency launches the
Giotto spacecraft a rocket. It
encounters Halley's Comet in 1986 and
Comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup in 1992.
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1975 - American Apollo (18) and Soviet
Soyuz 19 dock, the first international
spacecraft rendezvous.
1978 - Two Pioneer spacecraft reach
Venus. One drops four probes into the
atmosphere, while the other maps the
surface.
1982 - Venera 13 lands on Venus and
provides the first Venusian soil analysis.
Voyager 2 completes its flyby of Saturn.
1984 - Bruce McCandless takes the first
untethered spacewalk using MMU from
the space shuttle Challenger.
Katherine Sullivan becomes the first
American woman to walk in space.
Soviet/International Vega 1 & 2 is
launched, dropping probes into Venus'
atmosphere before continuing to
Halley's Comet.
1986 - Voyager 2 flies past Uranus.
Space shuttle Challenger explodes
shortly after liftoff.
1987 - Supernova 1987A blazes into
view.
Astronomers discover an invisible
gravity source that splits a quasar's
light, that our galaxy is smaller than
they thought, and that the Sun is
23,000 light-years from its center.
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Grade 6
Science
Unit: 08 Lesson: 03
1989 - Soviet/International Phobos 2
launches, which orbits Mars to study its
surface, atmosphere, and magnetic
field.
1990 - Space Shuttle Discovery
launches deploying the Edwin P.
Hubble Space Telescope astronomical
observatory.
U.S. launches the Galileo spacecraft
from Shuttle Atlantis flight which takes
infrared images of Venus and the
asteroid Ida before continuing to
Jupiter.
U.S. spacecraft Magellan arrives at
Venus, and for a year, it takes radar
images of the surface.
1992 - Spacecraft Ulysses flies around
Jupiter, on its way to the Sun.
1993 - Space Shuttle Endeavour
launches making the first on-orbit
service of the Hubble Space
Telescope.
1991 - Shuttle Columbia carries the
Spacelab into orbit, to conduct
investigations into the effects of
weightlessness on humans.
Space Shuttle Discovery launches the
Ulysses spacecraft flies toward Jupiter,
to be slingshot towards the Sun and
obtain data from high solar latitudes.
1994 - Spacecraft Magellan enters the
atmosphere of Venus, burning up
following the completion of its mapping
mission.
Asteroid XM1 passes within 65,000
miles of Earth.
1995 - The Galileo spacecraft arrives
at Jupiter, performing an orbit while
dropping a probe into the atmosphere
and putting a satellite into orbit, which
will spend the next two years orbiting
the planet.
1996 - NASA launches the first in the
Discovery series of spacecraft, the
Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
(NEAR) spacecraft, aboard a Delta
rocket.
1997 - Mars Global Surveyor arrives at
Mars, taking about 2,000 images of
the planet. This probe shows dust
storms, evidence of Martian streams,
ponds, oceans, and underground
water drainage systems.
1998 - Lunar Prospector placed in
lunar orbit to make spectroscopic
analysis of the entire lunar surface,
including its North and South poles,
and soon confirms what the
Department of Defense Clementine
mission had found in 1994 - that
trapped within some of the craters at
the Moon's two poles is about 6.6
trillion tons of permanently frozen
water ice.
Launch of the double probe
Cassini/Huygens, aimed at Saturn. It
carries a camera package and 11
other instruments to perform 19
experiments on the Saturn. It will
arrive at Saturn in 2004 and orbit it up
to 60 times, sending back close-up
photographs of Saturn's rings and its
18 moons. Cassini also carries a
separate probe, Huygens. This probe
will be dropped through the
atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon,
Titan.
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1997 - After 25 years of operation,
routine telemetry and ground control
with Pioneer 10 is terminated. The
probe at that moment is 6.7 billion miles
from Earth, traveling at 28,000 miles
per hour. In two million years, it will
reach the red giant Aldeberan in the
constellation of Taurus.
1999 - Deep Space 1 flies to within 16
miles of the asteroid Braille and
continues on its course to rendezvous
with Comet Wilson-Harrington in
January 2001.
Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off with
John Glenn aboard, first American to
orbit Earth and at 77, the oldest man to
fly in space. The flight is the last purely
scientific shuttle flight, focusing on
astronomy, life sciences, and
materials.
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Grade 6
Science
Unit: 08 Lesson: 03
2000 - Galileo space probe completes
its encounter with Jupiter's ice moon,
Europa, at an altitude of 343 km. Later
in the year, on May 30, Galileo flies by
Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede at
an altitude of 808 km.
Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts off to
carry out the Shuttle Radar
Topography Mission and produces a
three-dimensional map of about 80%
of the world's landmass.
NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid
Rendezvous) probe settles into orbit
around the asteroid 433 Eros,
producing a series of stunning closeup images. Ground controllers start
tightening its orbit for an eventual soft
impact with the tumbling, potatoshaped asteroid.
2004 - The Mars rovers Spirit and
Opportunity land on opposite sides of
the planet. Designed to last only three
months, the rovers prove to be tough
and the mission is continued for
several years. The rovers send back
images of the surface and perform
chemical experiments on rock
samples.
Cassini probe arrives at the planet
Saturn, where it will spend four years
photographing the planet and its many
moons. Cassini carries with it another
small probe, called Huygens, which
will later be sent to land on Saturn's
largest moon, Titan, to send back the
first images of the surface of Titan.
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2001 - The Chinese launched the
manned Shenshou spaceship,
reported to be carrying a monkey, dog,
and rabbit.
NEAR soft impacts on the asteroid 433
Eros, at 2 m/s. Signals continue to be
received from the probe hours after
the landing, confirming its survival.
2003 - The space shuttle Columbia
breaks up while traveling over 13,000
miles per hour in the atmosphere over
Texas while returning to the Kennedy
space center. The entire sevenmember crew is killed in the accident.
Soyuz spacecraft TM-32 lifts off for the
ISS with the first space tourist,
American millionaire Dennis Tito, pays
the Russians $20 million for the 6 day
ride.
Deep Space 1 successfully completes
its flyby of comet 19P/Borrelly; Galileo
completes another flyby of Jupiter's
moon, Io, passing only 181 km from
Io's south polar region.
2005 - After descending by parachute
for 2 hours and 28 minutes, the
Huygens probe lands on Saturn's
largest moon, Titan. Sending images
of the surface of a moon other than
our own. The images show a surface
that is flat and littered with small rocks.
Dark areas on some images could
indicate the presence of liquid
methane.
2006 - After a journey of 4.6 billion
kilometers, NASA's Stardust capsule
parachutes to Earth after collecting
dust and particle samples from comet
Wild 2. The samples were collected by
the probe in the comet's coma within
236 kilometers of the comet’s nucleus.
Analysis of the samples may help to
reveal some of the secrets behind
solar system formation.
After a journey of 174 days, the Deep
Impact space probe ends its mission
by slamming into a comet known as
Tempel 1. The probe's mother ship
photographed the impact and
analyzed the resulting debris. Among
the many discoveries was water-ice
within the comet.
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Grade 6
Science
Unit: 08 Lesson: 03
2009 - The Kepler spacecraft will
search for planets outside our solar
system. As a planet moves in front of
the star's disk, the light from the star
dims ever so slightly and in a regular
cycle. Kepler can detect these cycles
to detect a planet and also to
approximate its size and orbit.
2011 - Messenger spacecraft will orbit
Mercury to map and photograph the
planet's surface. It will also study the
planet's thin atmosphere and search
for signs of water that could lie frozen
beneath the surface.
The space shuttle Atlantis becomes
the last American space shuttle to be
launched into space, ending the 30year space shuttle program. NASA will
look to private companies to provide
transportation for future projects.
Dawn spacecraft orbits the asteroid
Vesta. It is located in the main asteroid
belt between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn
will remain in orbit around Vesta for a
year photographing its rocky surface.
Dawn will continue on to study another
asteroid called Ceres.
©2012, TESCCC
11/06/12
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