A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit around a celestial body. Satellites have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation (GPS), broadcasting, scientific research, and Earth observation. Additional military uses are reconnaissance, early warning, signals intelligence and, potentially, weapon delivery. Other satellites include the final rocket stages that place satellites in orbit and formerly useful satellites that later become defunct.
Spaceflight is an application of astronautics to fly 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. Such spaceflight operate either by telerobotic or autonomous control. The more complex human spaceflight has been pursued soon after the first orbital satellites and has reached the Moon and permanent human presence in space around Earth, particularly with the use of space stations. Human spaceflight programs include the Soyuz, Shenzhou, the past Apollo Moon landing and the Space Shuttle programs. Other current spaceflight are conducted to the International Space Station and to China's Tiangong Space Station.
Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed for several years, and then delayed again, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
System Development Corporation (SDC) was a computer software company based in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1955, it is considered the first company of its kind.
SNAP-10A was a US experimental nuclear powered satellite launched into space in 1965 as part of the SNAPSHOT program. The test marked both the world's first operation of a nuclear reactor in orbit, and the first operation of an ion thruster system in orbit. It is the only fission reactor power system launched into space by the United States. The reactor stopped working after just 43 days due to a non-nuclear electrical component failure. The Systems Nuclear Auxiliary Power Program reactor was specifically developed for satellite use in the 1950s and early 1960s under the supervision of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
A vactrain is a proposed design for very-high-speed rail transportation. It is a maglev line using partly evacuated tubes or tunnels. Reduced air resistance could permit vactrains to travel at very high (hypersonic) speeds with relatively little power—up to 6,400–8,000 km/h (4,000–5,000 mph). This is 5–6 times the speed of sound in Earth's atmosphere at sea level.
The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), also known as Michibiki (みちびき), is a four-satellite regional time transfer system and a satellite-based augmentation system developed by the Japanese government to enhance the United States-operated Global Positioning System (GPS) in the Asia-Oceania regions, with a focus on Japan. The goal of QZSS is to provide highly precise and stable positioning services in the Asia-Oceania region, compatible with GPS. Four-satellite QZSS services were available on a trial basis as of 12 January 2018, and officially started on 1 November 2018. A satellite navigation system independent of GPS is planned for 2023 with seven satellites. In May 2023 it was announced that the system would expand to eleven satellites.
Badr-A was the first artificial and the first digital communications satellite launched by Pakistan's national space authority — the SUPARCO — in 1990. The Badr-A was Pakistan's first indigenously developed and manufactured digital communications and an experimental artificial satellite which was launched into low Earth orbit by Pakistan on 16 July 1990, through a Chinese carrier rocket. The launch ushered new military, technological, and scientific developments in Pakistan and also provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. Originally planned to be launched from the United States in 1986, the Challenger disaster further delayed the launch of the satellite which changed the plan. After the People's Republic of China offered Pakistan to use its facility, the Badr-A was finally launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in 1990 on Long March 2E. Badr-A travelled at 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h), taking 96.3 minutes to complete an orbit, and emitted radio signals at the 145 to 435 MHz bands which were operated by Pakistan Amateur Radio Society (PARS). The Badr-A successfully completed its designed life, and a new satellite was proposed to be developed.
Robert M. Salter Jr. was an American engineer who worked for the RAND Corporation. He was one of the first to study the possibility of using a satellite to collect information. During the 1970s, he advocated the vactrain high-speed transit concept. He also published papers on energy storage for the space program.
The Systems Nuclear Auxiliary POWER (SNAP) program was a program of experimental radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) and space nuclear reactors flown during the 1960s by NASA.
Merton E. Davies was a pioneer of America's space program, first in earth reconnaissance and later in planetary exploration and mapping. He graduated from Stanford University in 1938 and worked for the Douglas Aircraft corporation in the 1940s. He worked as a member of RAND Corporation after it split off from Douglas in 1948 and for the remainder of his career.
The RAND Corporation is a non-partisan American nonprofit global policy think tank and research institute that conducts research and development (R&D) in multiple fields and industries.
The following events occurred in May 1946:
With the advent of robotic and human spaceflight a new era of American history had presented itself. Keeping with the tradition of honoring the country's history on U.S. postage stamps, the U.S. Post Office began commemorating the various events with its commemorative postage stamp issues. The first U.S. Postage issue to depict a U.S. space vehicle was issued in 1948, the Fort Bliss issue. The first issue to commemorate a space project by name was the ECHO I communications satellite commemorative issue of 1960. Next was the Project Mercury issue of 1962. As U.S. space exploration progressed a variety of other commemorative issues followed, many of which bear accurate depictions of satellites, space capsules, Apollo Lunar Modules, space suits, and other items of interest.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958 from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other related organizations, as the result of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
Satellite in the Sky is a 1956 British CinemaScope science fiction film in Warner Color, produced by Edward J. Danziger and Harry Lee Danziger, directed by Paul Dickson, and starring Kieron Moore, Lois Maxwell, Donald Wolfit, and Bryan Forbes. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Special effects were by Wally Veevers, who would later work on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Salt Creek Earth Station is a satellite ground station located approximately 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Arbuckle, California. It is licensed to Xaba Ranch, LLC, a real estate holding company. The site was formerly licensed to AT&T, for whom it carried much of the United States' telecommunications to Asia and the Pacific Rim. AT&T opened the facility in May 1990 with three 60-foot (18 m) wide dishes each aimed at different satellites over the Pacific Ocean. According to James Bamford, the National Security Agency uses the facility to capture and monitor satellite telecommunications traveling in and out of the United States.
The Chinese reusable experimental spacecraft is the first Chinese reusable spacecraft. It was first launched on 4 September 2020 at 07:30 UTC on a Long March 2F from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China. Xinhua News Agency said in a report, "After a period of in-orbit operation, the spacecraft will return to the scheduled landing site in China. It will test reusable technologies during its flight, providing technological support for the peaceful use of space".
The Initial Defense Communications Satellite Program or IDCSP was the first United States Department of Defense communications satellite constellation and the first stage of the Defense Communications Satellite Program (DCSP). Launched in five groups by Titan IIIC launch vehicles to near equatorial, subsynchronous orbits between 1966 and 1968, they were intended to be experimental testbeds. They were so successful that, by the time of the launch of the last set of eight satellites, the IDCSP was deemed operational and renamed Initial Defense Satellite Communications System or IDSCS. This system allowed real-time collection of battlefield intelligence during the Vietnam War. A total of 35 IDCSP satellites were launched, 27 successfully.
James Everett Lipp was an American aerospace engineer. He attended California Institute of Technology and began his career at the Douglas Aircraft Company, staying there until 1948. He then joined the missile division at the newly created Project RAND as one of the first four full-time employees, tasked by then Brigadier General Curtis LeMay to figure out how to launch orbiting satellites from a spaceship. Lipp would later become the head of the aerospace division at RAND. His recommendations to the Air Force in February 1947 helped contribute to the creation of the US civil and military satellite program during the Cold War.
