SuomiKaataa2

In the Moon race I cannot forget  Ranger program , which was series of U.S. unmanned space missions in 1960s. The main objective was to get closer image of the surface of the Moon. The first 6 flights failed. The program was also called in certain time as "shoot and hope" .  The program had 3 block phases with different mission objectives. They have planned multiple launches in order to increase success of the mission. 

Surveyor (from NASA program) was a robotic spacecraft program to the surface of the Moon. It was the first U.S. mission to make a soft landing on the Moon.  5 missions, including the first one, succeeded. Surveyor 2 crashed at high velocity and Surveyor 4 lost contact, so probably exploded.  All of the other spacecraft are still on the Moon. None of them was planned to return to Earth. Some part of Surveyor 3 were return to Earth by Apollo 12, which landed in 1969.  source: wikipedia On the picture of Moon you can see nicely landing spots of all mission with the particular numbers: Luna (red triangles), Apollo (green triangles), and Surveyor (yellow triangles). The primary goal was to demonstrate soft landings on the lunar surface, to prepare it for Apollo program ( Apollo Program ), and to test the lunar soil, because it was not known how deep the dust on the Moon was before this mission. Surveyor 1 was launched on May 30, 1966. It has made soft landing, 4 mo...

Unlike Earth, Mars does not have inner dynamo to keep a proper magnetic field. This does not mean that Mars does not have any magnetosphere. The process is just slightly different from what we know about Earth, or I have written about Jupiter so far for example, in article Magnetosphere of Jupiter .  First I would like to mention few interesting summaries about Mars: Dozens of spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars by the Soviet Union, US, Europe, and Japan 2/3 of all missions failed, see example in article  Soviet Mars Probe Program F irst indication of the weakness of the magnetic field: Mariner 4 flyby in 1965 (at closest approach 3.9 radii of Mars)  N o indication of Earth like dipole Phobos-2 observations of solar wind – Mars interaction in 1989 ( Solar Wind ) Magnetosphere of Mars is much more simple and smaller than the Earth's magnetosphere. Generally it is formed by the solar wind magnetic fiel d....

I was just thinking that Soviet Space Program is not that well known as U.S. programs, so I have decided to continue searching for any other interesting programs in the similar time period as Apollo and Luna programs.  The Mars probe program was a series of Soviet unmanned spacecraft to explore Mars launched between between 1960 and 1973. They consisted of flyby probes, landers and orbiters as well. During Zond program, in article Soviet Lunar Program , Zond 2 was sent to Mars, but it failed.  After many failures, Mars 2 (launched on May 19, 1971) and Mars 3  (launched on May 28, 1971) missions reached Mars. They were identical spacecraft, consisting of orbiter and lander, which means the first spacecraft reaching the surface of Mars. The orbiters played among the scientific goals as a communication link between the lander and Earth. Scientific goals consisted of making images of clouds and surfaces, monitor solar wind and interplanetary and Martian magnetic fi...

Previously I have written about History of Solar wind ,  Solar wind . And also I have made summary of  Apollo program . Now I have decided to move to the Soviet lunar program as well. They have achieved many milestones in the space history. The Soviet Lunar Program had 20 successful missions to the Moon: first probe to impact the Moon, first flyby and picture of the far side of the Moon by Luna 3, first soft landing on the Moon, first lunar orbiter, first probe return to the Earth. Those mission consisted of two series: Luna missions (all together 24) and Zond missions (5 missions). Soviet Space Program The Luna Missions The first in-situ observation of the solar wind and first lunar flyby was made by Luna 1 (more details in the article) in 1959 from Baikonur Cosmodrome . The planned impact to the Moon was made by next mission Luna 2 launched on September 12, 1959.  Luna 2 was similar to Luna 1 design. The mission for example confirmed that Moon had no ap...

Years of the best space conguest occured before I was even born. Apollo program occurred between 1963 - 1972. And the main goal of the program was to get human beings to the surface of the Moon. Credit: NASA However, the Apollo program started with huge tragedy of loss of 3 astronauts ( Apollo 1 ) occurred on January 27, 1967. They were killer in a fire in the Apollo Command Module during a preflight test. The launch was scheduled on February 21 for the Earth orbiting mission. Apollo 4, 5, 6 were uncrewed testing missions. You can see that Apollo 2 and 3 are missing. Generally, they were cancelled due to the fire of Apollo 1. They were planned to be manned missions. Apollo 7 was the first crewed flight launched on October 11, 1968.  The main goal was to test the Command and Service Module. Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968. It was the first mission with manned crew to fly in vicinity of the Moon. Apollo 9 was launched on March 3, 1969 and the crew tes...

I am very interested in very early spacecraft history and I think that I will spend some time to read all kind of sources. This time I have chosen Luna 1 (alternate names: Lunik 1, Mechta). It was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Earth's Moon. It was put for the first time to the heliocentric orbit as well. Luna 1, part of the Soviet Luna programme, was launched in 1959 from Baikonur Cosmodrome. After the launch while it was travelling through the Van Allen radion belts it made already measurements, to indicate small amount of high energetic particles in the outer belt. Moon was found to have no detectable magnetic field. Luna 1 made the first ever direct observation of the solar wind. Luna 1 was actually planned to impact the Moon but due to the programming error the burning stage was incorrect and it missed the Moon by 5900 km at the closest point. Spacecraft contained instruments for measurements: magnetometer, Geiger counter, scintillation counter, and ...

I would like to write about one of my most favourite topics: the Jupiter's magnetosphere . Jupiter is really significant planet in our solar system. It is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the solar system. The magnetosphere is the cavity created in the solar wind by the magnetic field of the planet. Also the magnetosphere is the largest and most powerful from all planetary magnetospheres in our solar system. To show different sizes and how huge is the Jupiter's magnetosphere I like to show the following sketch. Let's start from the planet Mercury on top left panel and going to the top right to the Earth's magnetosphere. Then let's continue down right to the planet Saturn and then let's finish on the bottom left panel of the planet Jupiter. For the magnetized planets, those with intrinsic magnetic fields, the obstacle to the solar wind is the planetary magnetic field and the size of the magnetosphere is governed by the relative strengths ...

History of the solar wind doesn't go so deeply into our past, but it is not that new as someone would say. The existence of particles flow from the Sun was suggested by British astronomer Richard C. Carrington (1859).  By the end of the 19th century seemed to be clear idea of connection between the solar activity and magnetic field disturbances on the Earth. But what was the carrier? In 1910 British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington suggested indirectly existence of the solar wind in the article on Comet Morehouse. The first person who has suggested ejected material from the Sun was Kristian Birkeland. He has displayed that the geomagnetic activity was produced by the particles coming from the Sun. In 1919 Frederick Lindemann suggested that quasi-neutral charged particles come from the Sun and are responsible for the non-recurrent magnetic storms at the Earth. In 1950s Ludwig Biermmann got interested that no matter where the comet was heading, the cometary tail was always po...

I have been recently very interested in mission JUNO. It is a NASA/JPL mission and was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 5th of August 2011. It was launched aboard the Atlas V552 rocket and placed into the orbit. It took 2 years cruising the inner solar system before it took direction to Jupiter, using Earth's gravity to help to propel itself into the correct direction. Actually the name of the mission JUNO comes from the Greek and Roman mythology. JUNO is the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter after the Galileo mission, orbiting 1995 to 2003. Unlike the previous mission JUNO uses solar panels instead of the radioisotope thermoelectric generators used by previous missions. The main goal of the mission is to study the origin and the evolution of Jupiter. It arrived to Jupiter in July 2016. Right now JUNO is orbiting around Jupiter. Credit NASA/JPL JUNO mission is looking for how much water is in the Jupiter's atmosphere, what is the composition of the atmosp...

As many people know my favourite topic is the Solar wind. The solar wind is a constant stream of plasma and charged particles from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called Corona, spreading into the space. The interplanetary magnetic field is embedded within the solar wind plasma. The solar wind varies in density, speed and temperature over the time and over the solar latitude. Credit to NASA, Ulysses The speed of the solar wind ranges from slow solar wind 300 - 500 km/s to fast solar wind 500 - 1000 km/s and temperature between 10^6 K to 10^5 K. Slow solar wind is almost twice denser than the fast solar wind. The fast solar wind originates from coronal holes, which is the region of open magnetic field lines. The slow solar wind originates from the streamer belts over the closed magnetic field lines. T he solar minimum, the period of the lowest solar activity, is shown  on the left side of the picture. The solar maximum, the period of the highest solar activity, i...

Since my university studies I have been involved in the scientific research. credit to NASA: solar wind (Ulysses) The topic of my scientific activities is the Sun-Earth coupling, in particular studying and tracing of interplanetary shocks, their interaction with the Earth’s magnetosphere, studying of magnetic clouds and geoefficiency of different features on the Earth’s magnetosphere. I have studied that topics both observationally, using different spacecraft in different places in the solar wind, magnetosheath, and magnetosphere, and using a global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation, such as especially GUMICS-4 but also basic usage of BATS-R-US simulation. My recent studies were comparison of observation with global MHD simulation results focusing on disturbance propagation and evolution inside the Earth’s magnetosphere and comparison of different solar wind parameters, and also to study of wave form in the magnetosphere, and to study geoeffectiveness of magnetic cloud,...