home Thyroid How does a regular space rocket work? On the question of where the ISS flies - in space or the atmosphere

How does a regular space rocket work? On the question of where the ISS flies - in space or the atmosphere

> 10 facts you didn't know about the ISS

The most interesting facts about the ISS(International Space Station) with photo: life of astronauts, you can see the ISS from Earth, crew members, gravity, batteries.

The International Space Station (ISS) is one of the greatest technological achievements of all mankind in history. The space agencies of the USA, Europe, Russia, Canada and Japan have united in the name of science and education. It is a symbol of technological excellence and demonstrates how much we can achieve when we collaborate. Below are 10 facts you may have never heard about the ISS.

1. The ISS celebrated its 10th anniversary of continuous human operation on November 2, 2010. Since the first expedition (October 31, 2000) and docking (November 2), the station was visited by 196 people from eight countries.

2. The ISS can be seen from Earth without the use of technology and is the largest artificial satellite ever to orbit our planet.

3. Since the first Zarya module, launched at 1:40 a.m. Eastern Time on November 20, 1998, the ISS has completed 68,519 orbits around the Earth. Her odometer shows 1.7 billion miles (2.7 billion km).

4. As of November 2, 103 launches were made to the cosmodrome: 67 Russian vehicles, 34 shuttles, one European and one Japanese ship. 150 spacewalks were made to assemble the station and maintain its operation, which took more than 944 hours.

5. The ISS is controlled by a crew of 6 astronauts and cosmonauts. At the same time, the station program has ensured the continuous presence of man in space since the launch of the first expedition on October 31, 2000, which is approximately 10 years and 105 days. Thus, the program maintained the current record, beating the previous mark of 3,664 days set aboard Mir.

6. The ISS serves as a research laboratory equipped with microgravity conditions, in which the crew conducts experiments in the fields of biology, medicine, physics, chemistry and physiology, as well as astronomical and meteorological observations.

7. The station is equipped with huge solar panels that span the size of a US football field, including end zones, and weigh 827,794 pounds (275,481 kg). The complex has a habitable room (like a five-bedroom house) equipped with two bathrooms and a gym.

8. 3 million lines of software code on Earth support 1.8 million lines of flight code.

9. A 55-foot robotic arm can lift 220,000 feet of weight. For comparison, this is what the orbital shuttle weighs.

10. Acres of solar panels provide 75-90 kilowatts of power for the ISS.

At what speed does a rocket fly into space?

This article will introduce the reader to such an interesting topic as the space rocket, launch vehicle and all the useful experience that this invention has brought to humanity. It will also talk about payloads delivered into outer space. Space exploration began not so long ago. In the USSR it was the middle of the third five-year plan, when the Second World War ended. The space rocket was developed in many countries, but even the United States failed to overtake us at that stage.

First

The first successful launch to leave the USSR was a space launch vehicle with an artificial satellite on board on October 4, 1957. The PS-1 satellite was successfully launched into low-Earth orbit. It should be noted that this required the creation of six generations, and only the seventh generation of Russian space rockets were able to develop the speed required to enter near-Earth space - eight kilometers per second. Otherwise, it is impossible to overcome the gravity of the Earth.

This became possible in the process of developing long-range ballistic weapons, where engine boost was used. It should not be confused: a space rocket and a spaceship are two different things. The rocket is a delivery vehicle, and the ship is attached to it. Instead, there can be anything there - a space rocket can carry a satellite, equipment, and a nuclear warhead, which has always served and still serves as a deterrent for nuclear powers and an incentive to preserve peace.

Story

The first to theoretically substantiate the launch of a space rocket were Russian scientists Meshchersky and Tsiolkovsky, who already in 1897 described the theory of its flight. Much later, this idea was picked up by Oberth and von Braun from Germany and Goddard from the USA. It was in these three countries that work began on the problems of jet propulsion, the creation of solid fuel and liquid jet engines. These issues were best resolved in Russia; at least solid fuel engines were already widely used in World War II (Katyusha engines). Liquid jet engines were better developed in Germany, which created the first ballistic missile, the V-2.

After the war, Wernher von Braun's team, taking the drawings and developments, found shelter in the USA, and the USSR was forced to be content with a small number of individual rocket components without any accompanying documentation. The rest we came up with ourselves. Rocket technology developed rapidly, increasingly increasing the range and weight of the load carried. In 1954, work began on the project, thanks to which the USSR was able to be the first to fly a space rocket. It was an R-7 intercontinental two-stage ballistic missile, which was soon upgraded for space. It turned out to be a success - extremely reliable, securing many records in space exploration. It is still used in its modernized form.

"Sputnik" and "Moon"

In 1957, the first space rocket - the same R-7 - launched the artificial Sputnik 1 into orbit. The United States decided to repeat such a launch a little later. However, in the first attempt, their space rocket did not go into space; it exploded at the start - even on live television. "Vanguard" was designed by a purely American team, and it did not live up to expectations. Then Wernher von Braun took up the project, and in February 1958 the launch of the space rocket was a success. Meanwhile, in the USSR the R-7 was modernized - a third stage was added to it. As a result, the speed of the space rocket became completely different - a second cosmic speed was achieved, thanks to which it became possible to leave the Earth's orbit. For several more years, the R-7 series was modernized and improved. The engines of space rockets were changed, and a lot of experiments were done with the third stage. The next attempts were successful. The speed of the space rocket made it possible not only to leave the Earth’s orbit, but also to think about studying other planets in the solar system.

But at first, mankind's attention was almost completely focused on the Earth's natural satellite - the Moon. In 1959, the Soviet space station Luna 1 flew to it, which was supposed to make a hard landing on the lunar surface. However, due to insufficiently accurate calculations, the device passed a little past (six thousand kilometers) and rushed towards the Sun, where it settled into orbit. This is how our star got its first artificial satellite - an accidental gift. But our natural satellite was not alone for long, and in the same 1959, Luna-2 flew to it, completing its task absolutely correctly. A month later, Luna 3 delivered us photographs of the far side of our night star. And in 1966, Luna 9 softly landed right in the Ocean of Storms, and we received panoramic views of the lunar surface. The lunar program continued for a long time, until the time when American astronauts landed on it.

Yuri Gagarin

April 12 has become one of the most significant days in our country. It is impossible to convey the power of the people's jubilation, pride, and truly happiness when the world's first human flight into space was announced. Yuri Gagarin became not only a national hero, he was applauded by the whole world. And therefore, April 12, 1961, a day that triumphantly went down in history, became Cosmonautics Day. The Americans urgently tried to respond to this unprecedented step in order to share space glory with us. A month later, Alan Shepard took off, but the ship did not go into orbit; it was a suborbital flight in an arc, and the United States succeeded in orbital flight only in 1962.

Gagarin flew into space on the Vostok spacecraft. This is a special machine in which Korolev created an extremely successful space platform that solves many different practical problems. At the same time, at the very beginning of the sixties, not only a manned version of space flight was being developed, but a photo reconnaissance project was also completed. "Vostok" generally had many modifications - more than forty. And today satellites from the Bion series are in operation - these are direct descendants of the ship on which the first manned flight into space was made. In the same 1961, German Titov had a much more complex expedition, who spent the whole day in space. The United States was able to repeat this achievement only in 1963.

"East"

An ejection seat was provided for cosmonauts on all Vostok spacecraft. This was a wise decision, since a single device performed tasks both at the launch (emergency rescue of the crew) and the soft landing of the descent module. Designers focused their efforts on developing one device rather than two. This reduced the technical risk; in aviation, the catapult system at that time was already well developed. On the other hand, there is a huge gain in time than if you design a completely new device. After all, the space race continued, and the USSR won it by a fairly large margin.

Titov landed in the same way. He was lucky to parachute near the railway along which the train was traveling, and was immediately photographed by journalists. The landing system, which has become the most reliable and softest, was developed in 1965 and uses a gamma altimeter. She still serves today. The USA did not have this technology, which is why all of their descent vehicles, even the new SpaceX Dragons, do not land, but splash down. Only shuttles are an exception. And in 1962, the USSR already began group flights on the Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 spacecraft. In 1963, the first woman joined the corps of Soviet cosmonauts - Valentina Tereshkova went into space, becoming the first in the world. At the same time, Valery Bykovsky set a record for the duration of a single flight that has not yet been broken - he stayed in space for five days. In 1964, the multi-seat Voskhod ship appeared, and the United States was a whole year behind. And in 1965, Alexei Leonov went into outer space!

"Venus"

In 1966, the USSR began interplanetary flights. The Venera 3 spacecraft made a hard landing on a neighboring planet and delivered there the Earth's globe and the USSR pennant. In 1975, Venera 9 managed to make a soft landing and transmit an image of the planet's surface. And "Venera-13" took color panoramic photographs and sound recordings. The AMS series (automatic interplanetary stations) for studying Venus, as well as the surrounding outer space, continues to be improved even now. The conditions on Venus are harsh, and there was practically no reliable information about them; the developers knew nothing about the pressure or temperature on the surface of the planet, all this, naturally, complicated the research.

The first series of descent vehicles even knew how to swim - just in case. Nevertheless, at first the flights were not successful, but later the USSR was so successful in Venusian wanderings that this planet began to be called Russian. "Venera-1" is the first spacecraft in human history designed to fly to other planets and explore them. It was launched in 1961, but a week later the connection was lost due to sensor overheating. The station became uncontrollable and was only able to make the world's first flyby near Venus (at a distance of about one hundred thousand kilometers).

In the footsteps

"Venera-4" helped us find out that on this planet there are two hundred and seventy-one degrees in the shadow (the night side of Venus), a pressure of up to twenty atmospheres, and the atmosphere itself is ninety percent carbon dioxide. This spacecraft also discovered a hydrogen corona. "Venera-5" and "Venera-6" told us a lot about the solar wind (plasma flows) and its structure near the planet. "Venera-7" clarified data on temperature and pressure in the atmosphere. Everything turned out to be even more complicated: the temperature closer to the surface was 475 ± 20°C, and the pressure was an order of magnitude higher. On the next spacecraft, literally everything was redone, and after one hundred and seventeen days, Venera-8 gently landed on the day side of the planet. This station had a photometer and many additional instruments. The main thing was the connection.

It turned out that the lighting on the nearest neighbor is almost no different from that on Earth - just like ours on a cloudy day. It’s not just cloudy there, the weather has really cleared up. The pictures of what the equipment saw simply stunned the earthlings. In addition, the soil and the amount of ammonia in the atmosphere were examined, and wind speed was measured. And “Venera-9” and “Venera-10” were able to show us the “neighbor” on TV. These are the world's first recordings transmitted from another planet. And these stations themselves are now artificial satellites of Venus. The last to fly to this planet were “Venera-15” and “Venera-16”, which also became satellites, having previously provided humanity with absolutely new and necessary knowledge. In 1985, the program was continued by Vega-1 and Vega-2, which studied not only Venus, but also Halley's comet. The next flight is planned for 2024.

Something about a space rocket

Since the parameters and technical characteristics of all rockets differ from each other, let us consider a new generation launch vehicle, for example Soyuz-2.1A. It is a three-stage medium-class rocket, a modified version of the Soyuz-U, which has been in operation very successfully since 1973.

This launch vehicle is designed to launch spacecraft. The latter may have military, economic and social purposes. This rocket can launch them into different types of orbits - geostationary, geostationary, sun-synchronous, highly elliptical, medium, low.

Modernization

The rocket is extremely modernized; a fundamentally different digital control system has been created here, developed on a new domestic element base, with a high-speed on-board digital computer with a much larger amount of RAM. The digital control system provides the rocket with high-precision launch of payloads.

In addition, engines have been installed on which the injector heads of the first and second stages have been improved. A different telemetry system is in effect. Thus, the accuracy of the missile launch, its stability and, of course, controllability have increased. The mass of the space rocket did not increase, but the useful payload increased by three hundred kilograms.

Specifications

The first and second stages of the launch vehicle are equipped with liquid rocket engines RD-107A and RD-108A from NPO Energomash named after Academician Glushko, and the third stage is equipped with a four-chamber RD-0110 from the Khimavtomatika Design Bureau. Rocket fuel is liquid oxygen, which is an environmentally friendly oxidizing agent, as well as slightly toxic fuel - kerosene. The length of the rocket is 46.3 meters, the weight at launch is 311.7 tons, and without the warhead - 303.2 tons. The mass of the launch vehicle structure is 24.4 tons. The fuel components weigh 278.8 tons. Flight tests of Soyuz-2.1A began in 2004 at the Plesetsk cosmodrome, and they were successful. In 2006, the launch vehicle made its first commercial flight - it launched the European meteorological spacecraft Metop into orbit.

It must be said that rockets have different payload launch capabilities. There are light, medium and heavy carriers. The Rokot launch vehicle, for example, launches spacecraft into low-Earth orbits - up to two hundred kilometers, and therefore can carry a load of 1.95 tons. But the Proton is a heavy class, it can launch 22.4 tons into a low orbit, 6.15 tons into a geostationary orbit, and 3.3 tons into a geostationary orbit. The launch vehicle we are considering is intended for all sites used by Roscosmos: Kourou, Baikonur, Plesetsk, Vostochny, and operates within the framework of joint Russian-European projects.

In the struggle to overcome the “condensation threshold,” aerodynamics scientists had to abandon the use of an expanding nozzle. Supersonic wind tunnels of a fundamentally new type were created. At the entrance to such a pipe a high-pressure cylinder is placed, which is separated from it by a thin plate - a diaphragm. At the outlet, the pipe is connected to a vacuum chamber, as a result of which a high vacuum is created in the pipe.

If the diaphragm is broken, for example by a sharp increase in pressure in the cylinder, the gas flow will rush through the pipe into the rarefied space of the vacuum chamber, preceded by a powerful shock wave. Therefore, these installations are called shock wind tunnels.

As with a balloon-type tube, the impact time of wind tunnels is very short, amounting to only a few thousandths of a second. To carry out the necessary measurements in such a short time, it is necessary to use complex, high-speed electronic devices.

The shock wave moves in the pipe at very high speed and without a special nozzle. In wind tunnels created abroad, it was possible to obtain air flow speeds of up to 5,200 meters per second at a temperature of the flow itself of 20,000 degrees. At such high temperatures, the speed of sound in a gas also increases, and much more. Therefore, despite the high speed of the air flow, its excess over the speed of sound turns out to be insignificant. The gas moves at a high absolute speed and at a low speed relative to sound.

To reproduce high supersonic flight speeds, it was necessary to either further increase the speed of the air flow, or reduce the speed of sound in it, that is, reduce the air temperature. And then aerodynamicists again remembered the expanding nozzle: after all, with its help you can do both at the same time - it accelerates the gas flow and at the same time cools it. The expanding supersonic nozzle in this case turned out to be the gun from which aerodynamicists killed two birds with one stone. In shock tubes with such a nozzle, it was possible to obtain air flow speeds 16 times higher than the speed of sound.

AT SATELLITE SPEED

There are various ways to sharply increase the pressure in the shock tube cylinder and thereby rupture the diaphragm. For example, as they do in the USA, where a powerful electric discharge is used.

A high-pressure cylinder is placed in the pipe at the inlet, separated from the rest by a diaphragm. Behind the cylinder there is an expanding nozzle. Before the start of the tests, the pressure in the cylinder increased to 35-140 atmospheres, and in the vacuum chamber, at the outlet of the pipe, it dropped to a millionth of atmospheric pressure. Then a super-powerful discharge of an electric arc was produced in the cylinder with a current of one million! Artificial lightning in a wind tunnel sharply increased the pressure and temperature of the gas in the cylinder, the diaphragm instantly evaporated and the air flow rushed into the vacuum chamber.

Within one tenth of a second, it was possible to reproduce a flight speed of about 52,000 kilometers per hour, or 14.4 kilometers per second! Thus, in laboratories it was possible to overcome both the first and second cosmic velocities.

From that moment on, wind tunnels became a reliable aid not only for aviation, but also for rocketry. They allow us to solve a number of issues of modern and future space navigation. With their help, you can test models of rockets, artificial Earth satellites and spaceships, reproducing the part of their flight that they pass within the planetary atmosphere.

But the speeds achieved should be only at the very beginning of the scale of an imaginary cosmic speedometer. Their development is only the first step towards the creation of a new branch of science - space aerodynamics, which was brought to life by the needs of rapidly developing rocket technology. And there are already significant new successes in the further development of cosmic speeds.

Since air is ionized to some extent during an electric discharge, one can try to use electromagnetic fields in the same shock tube to further accelerate the resulting air plasma. This possibility was realized practically in another small-diameter hydromagnetic shock tube designed in the USA, in which the speed of the shock wave reached 44.7 kilometers per second! So far, spacecraft designers can only dream of such a speed of movement.

There is no doubt that further advances in science and technology will open up greater opportunities for the aerodynamics of the future. Already now, modern physical installations, for example, installations with high-speed plasma jets, are beginning to be used in aerodynamic laboratories. To reproduce the flight of photon rockets in a rarefied interstellar medium and to study the passage of spaceships through clusters of interstellar gas, it will be necessary to use the achievements of nuclear particle acceleration technology.

And, obviously, long before the first spaceships leave the borders, their miniature copies will more than once experience in wind tunnels all the hardships of a long journey to the stars.

P.S. What else are British scientists thinking about: however, cosmic speed happens not only in scientific laboratories. So, let’s say, if you are interested in creating websites in Saratov - http://galsweb.ru/, then here they will create it for you at truly cosmic speed.

Duration of continuous stay of a person in space flight conditions:

During the operation of the Mir station, absolute world records were set for the duration of continuous human presence in space flight conditions:
1987 - Yuri Romanenko (326 days 11 hours 38 minutes);
1988 - Vladimir Titov, Musa Manarov (365 days 22 hours 39 minutes);
1995 - Valery Polyakov (437 days 17 hours 58 minutes).

The total time a person spends in space flight conditions:

Absolute world records have been set for the duration of the total time a person spent in space flight at the Mir station:
1995 - Valery Polyakov - 678 days 16 hours 33 minutes (for 2 flights);
1999 - Sergey Avdeev - 747 days 14 hours 12 minutes (for 3 flights).

Spacewalks:

The Mir OS carried out 78 spacewalks (including three spacewalks into the depressurized Spektr module) with a total duration of 359 hours and 12 minutes. The following participants took part in the exits: 29 Russian cosmonauts, 3 US astronauts, 2 French astronauts, 1 ESA astronaut (German citizen). Sunita Williams, a NASA astronaut, became the world record holder among women for the longest duration of work in outer space. The American worked on the ISS for more than six months (November 9, 2007) together with two crews and made four spacewalks.

Space longevity:

According to the authoritative scientific digest New Scientist, Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev, as of Wednesday, August 17, 2005, had been in orbit for 748 days, thereby breaking the previous record set by Sergei Avdeev - during his three flights to the Mir station (747 days 14 hours 12 min). The various physical and mental stresses Krikalev endured characterize him as one of the most resilient and successfully adapting astronauts in the history of astronautics. Krikalev's candidacy was repeatedly elected to carry out rather complex missions. University of Texas physician and psychologist David Masson describes the astronaut as the best one you can find.

Duration of space flight among women:

Among women, world records for space flight duration under the Mir program were set by:
1995 - Elena Kondakova (169 days 05 hours 1 min); 1996 - Shannon Lucid, USA (188 days 04 hours 00 minutes, including at the Mir station - 183 days 23 hours 00 minutes).

The longest space flights of foreign citizens:

Among foreign citizens, the longest flights under the Mir program were made by:
Jean-Pierre Haignere (France) - 188 days 20 hours 16 minutes;
Shannon Lucid (USA) - 188 days 04 hours 00 minutes;
Thomas Reiter (ESA, Germany) - 179 days 01 hours 42 minutes.

Cosmonauts who have completed six or more spacewalks on the Mir station:

Anatoly Solovyov - 16 (77 hours 46 minutes),
Sergey Avdeev - 10 (41 hours 59 minutes),
Alexander Serebrov - 10 (31 hours 48 minutes),
Nikolay Budarin - 8 (44 hours 00 minutes),
Talgat Musabaev - 7 (41 hours 18 minutes),
Victor Afanasyev - 7 (38 hours 33 minutes),
Sergey Krikalev - 7 (36 hours 29 minutes),
Musa Manarov - 7 (34 hours 32 minutes),
Anatoly Artsebarsky - 6 (32 hours 17 minutes),
Yuriy Onufrienko - 6 (30 hours 30 minutes),
Yuri Usachev - 6 (30 hours 30 minutes),
Gennady Strekalov - 6 (21 hours 54 minutes),
Alexander Viktorenko - 6 (19 hours 39 minutes),
Vasily Tsibliev - 6 (19 hours 11 minutes).

First manned spacecraft:

The first manned space flight registered by the International Federation of Aeronautics (IFA founded in 1905) was made on the Vostok spacecraft on April 12, 1961 by USSR pilot cosmonaut Major of the USSR Air Force Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin (1934...1968). From the official documents of the IFA it follows that the ship launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:07 a.m. GMT and landed near the village of Smelovka, Ternovsky district, Saratov region. USSR in 108 min. The maximum flight altitude of the Vostok ship, with a length of 40868.6 km, was 327 km with a maximum speed of 28260 km/h.

First woman in space:

The first woman to fly around the Earth in space orbit was junior lieutenant of the USSR Air Force (now lieutenant colonel engineer pilot cosmonaut of the USSR) Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937), launched on the Vostok 6 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Kazakhstan USSR, at 9:30 min GMT on June 16, 1963 and landed at 08:16 on June 19 after a flight that lasted 70 hours and 50 minutes. During this time, it made more than 48 complete revolutions around the Earth (1,971,000 km).

Oldest and youngest astronauts:

The oldest among the 228 cosmonauts on Earth was Karl Gordon Henitze (USA), who at the age of 58 took part in the 19th flight of the Challenger spacecraft on July 29, 1985. The youngest was a major in the USSR Air Force (currently Lieutenant General pilot USSR cosmonaut) German Stepanovich Titov (born September 11, 1935) who was launched on the Vostok 2 spacecraft on August 6, 1961 at the age of 25 years 329 days.

First spacewalk:

The first to enter outer space on March 18, 1965 from the Voskhod 2 spacecraft was Lieutenant Colonel of the USSR Air Force (now Major General, pilot cosmonaut of the USSR) Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov (born May 20, 1934). He moved away from the ship at a distance of up to 5 m and spent 12 min 9 s in open space outside the airlock chamber.

First female spacewalk:

In 1984, Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to go into outer space, working outside the Salyut-7 station for 3 hours and 35 minutes. Before becoming an astronaut, Svetlana set three world records in parachuting in group jumps from the stratosphere and 18 aviation records in jet aircraft.

Record for longest spacewalk among women:

NASA astronaut Sunita Lyn Williams has set a record for the longest spacewalk for women. She spent 22 hours and 27 minutes outside the station, exceeding the previous achievement by more than 21 hours. The record was set during work on the outer part of the ISS on January 31 and February 4, 2007. Williams prepared the station for continued construction along with Michael Lopez-Alegria.

First autonomous spacewalk:

US Navy Captain Bruce McCandles II (born June 8, 1937) was the first person to work in outer space without a tether. On February 7, 1984, he left the Challenger space shuttle at an altitude of 264 km above Hawaii in a spacesuit with a self-contained backpack. propulsion system. The development of this space suit cost $15 million.

Longest manned flight:

Colonel of the USSR Air Force Vladimir Georgievich Titov (born January 1, 1951) and flight engineer Musa Khiramanovich Manarov (born March 22, 1951) launched on the Soyuz-M4 spacecraft on December 21, 1987 to the Mir space station and landed on the Soyuz-TM6 spacecraft (together with French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien) at an alternate landing site near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, USSR, on December 21, 1988, having spent 365 days 22 hours 39 minutes 47 seconds in space.

Farthest journey in space:

Soviet cosmonaut Valery Ryumin spent almost a whole year in the spacecraft, which completed 5,750 revolutions around the Earth in those 362 days. At the same time, Ryumin traveled a distance of 241 million kilometers. This is equal to the distance from Earth to Mars and back to Earth.

The most experienced space traveler:

The most experienced space traveler is Colonel of the USSR Air Force, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (born in 1944), who spent 430 days 18 hours 20 minutes in space in 3 flights in 1977...1978, in 1980 and in 1987 gg.

Largest crew:

The largest crew consisted of 8 astronauts (including 1 woman), who launched on October 30, 1985 on the Challenger reusable spacecraft.

Largest number of people in space:

The largest number of astronauts ever in space at the same time is 11: 5 Americans aboard Challenger, 5 Russians and 1 Indian aboard Salyut 7 in April 1984, 8 Americans aboard Challenger and 3 Russians aboard the Salyut 7 orbital station in October 1985, 5 Americans aboard the space shuttle, 5 Russians and 1 French aboard the Mir orbital station in December 1988.

Highest speed:

The highest speed at which a person has ever moved (39,897 km/h) was achieved by the main module of Apollo 10 at an altitude of 121.9 km from the surface of the Earth when the expedition returned on May 26, 1969. On board the spacecraft were the crew commander, Colonel US Air Force (now Brigadier General) Thomas Patten Stafford (b. Weatherford, Oklahoma, USA, September 17, 1930), US Navy Captain 3rd Class Eugene Andrew Cernan (b. Chicago, Illinois, USA, 14 March 1934) and US Navy Captain 3rd Class (now retired Captain 1st Class) John Watte Young (b. San Francisco, California, USA, September 24, 1930).
Of the women, the highest speed (28,115 km/h) was achieved by junior lieutenant of the USSR Air Force (now lieutenant colonel engineer, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR) Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937) on the Soviet spaceship Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.

Youngest cosmonaut:

The youngest astronaut today is Stephanie Wilson. She was born on September 27, 1966 and is 15 days younger than Anousha Ansari.

The first living creature to travel into space:

The dog Laika, which was launched into orbit around the Earth on the second Soviet satellite on November 3, 1957, was the first living creature in space. Laika died in agony from suffocation when the oxygen ran out.

Record time spent on the Moon:

The Apollo 17 crew collected a record weight (114.8 kg) of rock and pound samples during 22 hours 5 minutes of work outside the spacecraft. The crew included US Navy Captain 3rd Class Eugene Andrew Cernan (b. Chicago, Illinois, USA, March 14, 1934) and Dr. Harrison Schmitt (b. Saita Rose, New Mexico, USA, July 3 1935), becoming the 12th man to walk on the Moon. The astronauts were on the lunar surface for 74 hours 59 minutes during the longest lunar expedition, lasting 12 days 13 hours 51 minutes from December 7 to 19, 1972.

The first man to walk on the moon:

Neil Alden Armstrong (b. Wapakoneta, Ohio, USA, August 5, 1930, Scottish and German ancestors), commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, became the first person to set foot on the surface of the Moon in the region of the Sea of Tranquility at 2 o'clock 56 minutes 15 seconds GMT July 21, 1969 Following him from the Eagle lunar module was US Air Force Colonel Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. (b. Montclair, New Jersey, USA, January 20, 1930).

Highest space flight altitude:

The crew of Apollo 13 reached the highest altitude, being in apopulation (i.e. at the farthest point of its trajectory) 254 km from the lunar surface at a distance of 400187 km from the Earth’s surface at 1 hour 21 minutes Greenwich Mean Time on April 15, 1970. The crew included US Navy Captain James Arthur Lovell Jr. (b. Cleveland, Ohio, USA, March 25, 1928), Fred Wallace Hayes Jr. (b. Biloxi, Missouri, USA, November 14, 1933). ) and John L. Swigert (1931...1982). The altitude record for women (531 km) was set by American astronaut Katherine Sullivan (born in Paterson, New Jersey, USA, October 3, 1951) during a flight on a reusable spacecraft on April 24, 1990.

Highest speed of a spacecraft:

The first spacecraft to reach escape velocity 3, allowing it to go beyond the solar system, was Pioneer 10. The Atlas-SLV ZS launch vehicle with a modified 2nd stage Centaur-D and 3rd stage Thiokol-Te-364-4 left the Earth on March 2, 1972 at an unprecedented speed of 51682 km/ h. The spacecraft speed record (240 km/h) was set by the American-German solar probe Helios-B, launched on January 15, 1976.

Maximum approach of the spacecraft to the Sun:

On April 16, 1976, the Helios-B automatic research station (USA - Germany) approached the Sun at a distance of 43.4 million km.

The first artificial satellite of the Earth:

The first artificial Earth satellite was successfully launched on the night of October 4, 1957 into an orbit at an altitude of 228.5/946 km and at a speed of more than 28,565 km/h from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, north of Tyuratam, Kazakhstan, USSR (275 km east of the Aral Sea). The spherical satellite was officially registered as the “1957 Alpha 2” object, weighed 83.6 kg, had a diameter of 58 cm and, having supposedly existed for 92 days, burned up on January 4, 1958. The launch vehicle, modified R 7, 29.5 m long, was developed under the leadership of Chief designer S.P. Korolev (1907...1966) who also led the entire IS3 launch project.

Most distant man-made object:

Pioneer 10 launched from Cape Canaveral Space Center. Kennedy, Florida, USA, crossed the orbit of Pluto on October 17, 1986, which is 5.9 billion km from Earth. By April 1989 it was beyond the farthest point of Pluto's orbit and continues to move into space at a speed of 49 km/h. In 1934 e. it will approach the minimum distance to the star Ross-248, which is 10.3 light years away from us. Even before 1991, the Voyager 1 spacecraft, moving at a higher speed, will be further away than Pioneer 10.

One of the two space “Travelers” Voyager, launched from Earth in 1977, moved 97 AU from the Sun during its 28-year flight. e. (14.5 billion km) and is today the most remote artificial object. Voyager 1 crossed the boundary of the heliosphere, the region where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium, in 2005. Now the path of the device, flying at a speed of 17 km/s, lies in the shock wave zone. Voyager-1 will be operational until 2020. However, it is very likely that information from Voyager-1 will stop coming to Earth at the end of 2006. The fact is that NASA plans to cut the budget by 30% in terms of research of the Earth and the solar system.

The heaviest and largest space object:

The heaviest object launched into low-Earth orbit was the 3rd stage of the American Saturn 5 rocket with the Apollo 15 spacecraft, which weighed 140,512 kg before entering the intermediate selenocentric orbit. The American radio astronomy satellite Explorer 49, launched on June 10, 1973, weighed only 200 kg, but the span of its antennas was 415 m.

Most powerful rocket:

The Soviet space transport system "Energia", first launched on May 15, 1987 from the Baikonur cosmodrome, has a full load weight of 2400 tons and develops a thrust of more than 4 thousand tons. The rocket is capable of delivering a payload weighing up to 140 m into low-Earth orbit, maximum diameter - 16 m. Basically a modular installation used in the USSR. 4 accelerators are attached to the main module, each of which has 1 RD 170 engine running on liquid oxygen and kerosene. A modification of the rocket with 6 accelerators and an upper stage is capable of placing a payload weighing up to 180 tons into low-Earth orbit, delivering a payload weighing 32 tons to the Moon and 27 tons to Venus or Mars.

Flight range record among solar-powered research vehicles:

The Stardust space probe set a kind of flight range record among all solar-powered research vehicles - it is currently 407 million kilometers away from the Sun. The main purpose of the automatic device is to approach the comet and collect dust.

The first self-propelled vehicle on extraterrestrial space objects:

The first self-propelled vehicle designed to operate on other planets and their satellites in automatic mode was the Soviet “Lunokhod 1” (weight - 756 kg, length with open lid - 4.42 m, width - 2.15 m, height - 1. 92 m), delivered to the Moon by the Luna 17 spacecraft and began moving into the Mare Monsim on command from the Earth on November 17, 1970. In total, it traveled 10 km 540 m, overcoming climbs of up to 30°, until it stopped on October 4, 1971. , having worked 301 days 6 hours 37 minutes. The cessation of work was caused by the depletion of the resources of its isotope heat source. Lunokhod-1 examined in detail the lunar surface with an area of 80 thousand m2, transmitted to Earth more than 20 thousand of its images and 200 telepanoramas.

Record for speed and distance of movement on the Moon:

The record for speed and range of movement on the Moon was set by the American wheeled lunar rover Rover, delivered there by the Apollo 16 spacecraft. He reached a speed of 18 km/h down the slope and traveled a distance of 33.8 km.

Most expensive space project:

The total cost of the American human spaceflight program, including the last mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, was approximately $25,541,400,000. The first 15 years of the USSR space program, from 1958 to September 1973, according to Western estimates, cost $45 billion. The cost of NASA's Shuttle program (launching reusable spacecraft) before the launch of Columbia on April 12, 1981 was 9.9 billion dollars