Download Quiz Bowl Major Space Explorations 2

Major Space Exploration – Ongoing Missions
Voyager (U.S.)
Destination: Jupiter and Saturn. Launched: Aug. 20 (Voyager 2) and Sept. 5
(Voyager 1), 1977. Mission: To explore Jupiter and the other outer planets.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 passed Jupiter in 1979 and sent
back surprising color TV images of that planet and its moons. Voyager 1 passed
Saturn in Nov. 1980. Voyager 2 passed Saturn in Aug. 1981 and Uranus in Jan.
1986. Voyager 2 encountered Neptune in 1989 and discovered four rings around
the planet, six new moons, a giant spot, and evidence of volcanic-like activity on
its largest moon, Triton. The spacecraft sent back over 9,000 pictures of the
planet and its system. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft ever to have visited
the worlds of Neptune and Uranus. On Feb. 13, 1990, at a distance of 3.7 billion
miles, Voyager 1 took its final pictures of the Sun and six of its planets as seen
from deep space. NASA released the extraordinary images to the public on June
6, 1990. Only Mercury, Mars, and Pluto were not seen.
In its quarter-century of exploration, the Voyager project has returned immense
amounts of information. Voyager 1, at 9.2 billion miles from the Sun, is currently
the most distant human-made object in the universe, and Voyager 2 is 7.4 billion
miles from the Sun. Both spacecraft currently constitute the Voyager Interstellar
Mission (VIM) and continue to relay news of their surroundings through the Deep
Space Network (DSN). The craft and mission could last until 2020.
Ulysses (U.S. and European Space Agency)
Destination: The Sun. Launched: Oct. 6, 1990. Mission: To study the Sun and
map the interstellar space above and below its poles. The spacecraft was put into
orbit at right angles to the solar system's ecliptic plane. This special orbit enabled
Ulysses to examine for the first time the Sun's north and south polar regions.
Besides investigating the Sun, the spacecraft is also studying phenomena from
the Milky Way and beyond. The spacecraft completed its first full orbit around the
Sun on April 17, 1998, and continues to orbit the Sun. Ulysses made its closest
approach to Jupiter in Feb. 2004.
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) (U.S.)
Destination: Mars. Launched: Nov. 7, 1996. Arrival: Sept. 11, 1997. Mission: To
provide detailed maps of the planet's surface and distribution of minerals, and to
monitor the Martian weather. Six instruments on the orbiting spacecraft are
studying Martian surface, atmosphere, and gravitational and magnetic fields.
Surveyor's cameras are able to distinguish features as small as 10 ft across.
The primary mapping mission was delayed until March 1999, due to problems
with the craft's solar panels. MGS completed its primary mission in Jan. 2001,
and is currently in an extended mission phase. Having studied the planet's entire
surface, atmosphere, and interior, MGS has returned more Mars data than all
other Martian missions combined. Its most significant results include photographs
of gullies and debris flow that suggest the presence of water at or near the
planet's surface. MGS is collecting and transmitting data from the Mars
Exploration Rovers.
Cassini-Huygens (U.S., the European Space Agency, and the Italian
Space Agency)
Destination: Saturn. Launched: Oct. 15, 1997. Arrival: July 1, 2004. Mission: To
orbit Saturn for four years. The Cassini-Huygens mission is named for the ItalianFrench astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini, who discovered four of Saturn's
major moons, and the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, the first to find
Saturn's rings and its largest moon, Titan. Cassini-Huygens encountered Jupiter
on Dec. 30, 2000, and flew down the giant planet's magnetotail (the elongated
tail of a planet's magnetic field facing away from the Sun), performing studies
complementing the Galileo mission until March 31, 2001. On July 1, 2004, Cassini
reached Saturn's rings and went into the first of 74 orbits of the planet and
began sending back images of the rings and the moons. On Dec. 24, 2004, the
Huygens probe separated from the Cassini spacecraft and in Jan. 2005
descended to Titan, transmitting information for its 21/2 hour descent and then
for more than 90 minutes on the moon’s surface. The Cassini craft is slated to
continue its mission until July 1, 2008.
2001 Mars Odyssey (U.S.)
Destination: Mars. Launched: April 7, 2001. Arrival: Oct. 24, 2001. Mission: To
conduct mineralogical mapping of the planet and study the radiation risk to
humans over the course of three years. A goal of the program is to determine if
Mars's atmosphere could support life.
Mars Odyssey's primary mission of mapping the amount and distribution of
chemical elements and minerals that form the Martian surface and searching for
evidence of hydrogen in the subsurface was completed in Aug. 2004. Mars
Odyssey also provides support to the Mars Exploration Rovers program (MER),
serving as the communications relay for MER's rovers. About 85% of MER's
rovers' pictures have been relayed to Earth via Odyssey.
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) (U.S.)
Destination: Solar orbit. Launched: June 30, 2001. Arrival: Oct. 1, 2001. Mission:
To reveal conditions as they existed in the early universe by measuring the
properties of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the radiant heat left
over from the Big Bang, over the full sky. Each sky scan takes approximately six
months, and in April 2002, WMAP completed its first. The full sky map will be
updated as more data is received and analyzed. Data from WMAP's first full sky
scan was released in Feb. 2003, revealing a map of the oldest light in the
universe, 13.7 billion years old.
Mars Express (European Space Agency)
Destination: Mars. Launched: June 2, 2003. Arrival: Dec. 26, 2003. Mission: To
search for subsurface water from orbit and drop a lander on the Martian surface.
Instruments on the orbiting spacecraft study the atmosphere and the planet's
structure and geology. The lander, Beagle 2 (named after the ship on which
Charles Darwin sailed), was scheduled to take photographs, gather soil samples,
and examine rocks and soil microscopically—all in the search for signs of past life
on Mars. Beagle 2 separated from the orbiter on Dec. 19, 2003, but contact was
lost. The orbiter continues its mission, imaging the planet's entire surface,
mapping the composition of the surface and atmosphere, determining the
structure of the subsurface, and studying the atmosphere.
Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) (U.S.)
Destination: Mars. Launched: June 10, 2003 (Spirit) and July 7 (Opportunity).
Arrival: Jan. 2004. Mission: To deploy, in two different locations, Spirit and
Opportunity, two identical long-range rovers that can trek up to 300 yards (100
m) across the surface in a Martian day. The rovers' sophisticated instruments
enable them to act as mobile field geologists, taking color pictures, analyzing soil
and rocks, and searching for past and present evidence of water. The rovers were
designed to operate for 90 days but were performing so well the mission was
extended. Spirit made a successful landing on Jan. 3, 2004, and started beaming
3-D images of the planet the next day. On Jan. 6, Spirit began to send sharp
color pictures of the planet back to Earth. Opportunity landed on Jan. 24, 2004,
on the opposite side of Mars from Spirit and began sending images the next day.
Both rovers, on opposite sides of the planet, found evidence that water was
present, and even flowed, in the planet's past. As of July 21, 2006, Spirit had
racked up 2.91 mi (4,685 m) on its odometer and Opportunity has traveled 3.45
mi (5,555 m).
MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and
Ranging mission) (U.S.)
Destination: Mercury. Launched: Aug. 3, 2004. Arrival: 2011. Mission: To study
Mercury from orbit for the first time. MESSENGER is intended to spend at least a
year in orbit photographing the planet, studying its makeup, and charting
Mercury's magnetic field.
Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) (U.S.)
Destination: Mars orbit. Launched: Aug. 12, 2005. Arrival: March 2006. Mission:
To study the history of water on Mars. From its Mars orbit, the mission will take
pictures, analyze minerals, study the weather and atmosphere, probe the surface
for water ice, and assist spacecraft navigation and communications. MRO is
expected to collect more data than all previous Mars missions combined. The
primary mission is slated to end in 2010.
New Horizons (U.S.)
Destination: Pluto-Kuiper Belt. Launched: Jan. 19, 2006. Arrival: Summer 2015.
Mission: To study the worlds at the edge of our solar system. New Horizons will
be the first mission specifically designed to study Pluto and its moon Charon. This
mission plans to map Pluto's and Charon's surface appearances, study surface
compositions, and probe their atmospheres. New Horizons then will go to the
Kuiper Belt, located beyond Neptune's orbit, and examine Kuiper Belt objects,
thought to be similar to the composition of the cores of the giant planets.
Space Technology 5 (U.S.)
Destination: Earth's magnetosphere. Launched: March 22, 2006. Mission: To test
new technology and aid scientists in understanding Earth's magnetosphere. It is
the fourth deep-space mission of NASA's New Millennium program. The Nanosat
Constellation Trailblazer, known as Space Technology 5 or ST5, will test methods
for operating three miniature spacecraft as a single system. Each of the
spacecraft is about 17 in. (42 cm) across by 8 in. (20 cm) high and weighs about
47 lb.