USAFA astro

Orbit

A fixed "racetrack" on which the spacecraft travels around a planet or other celestial body

constellation

A fleet of identical spacecraft placed in different orbits to provide the necessary coverage to satisfy a mission

stages

A series of smaller rockets, (called stages) in a luanch vehicle, that ignite, furnish thrust, and then burn out in succession, each one handing off to the next one like runners in a relay race

X-15

A rocket-propelled spaceplane planned to exceed Mach 8 (eight times the speed of sound) and climb more than 112 km (70 mi) above Earth

Mariner

A series of missions designed to be the first U.S. spacecraft to other planets, specifically Venus and Mars and Mercury. The first Mariner spacecraft were launched in 1962.

mission operations systems

All facilities and infrastructure needed to design, assemble, integrate, verify, launch, and operate a space mission

limited by geometric constraints

Limited by the geometric cone of visibility and the edge of radio horizon

thrusters

Small rocket engines that adjust the spacecraft's orientation and maintain the orbit's size, shape, and orientation

focus

The planets moved around the Sun in elliptical orbits, with the Sun not at the center but at a focus

Subject

The primary focus of the mission

launch vehicle

The rocket that supplies the necessary velocity change to get a spacecraft into orbit

astronautics

The science and technology of spaceflight

astronomy

The science of the heavens

communication satellites

communication satellites

Redstone

A U.S. rocket develped from the German V-2 rocket

Bell X-1A

Experimental aircraft that flew to the edge of Earth's atmosphere

perturbation

A wobble in a planets orbit

flight control

Directs mission events thru communication between ground team and vehicle crew and/or computers

Vanguard

A Navy rocket that exploded on the launch pad on December 6, 1957 in the first attempt to launch a satellite by the U.S.

Mir Space Station

A Soviet expandable space station designed to extend the length of human presence in space

Space Shuttle

A piloted reusable spacecraft that carried men and cargo back and forth to the ISS

ballistic missile

A rocket launched into space that reenters the atmosphere to deliver warheads to a predetermined target

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory

A sophisticated satellite observatory dedicated to observing the high-energy Universe. Compton carries a collection of four instruments which together detected an unprecedented broad range of high-energy radiation called gamma rays.

International Space Station (ISS)

A space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. It is a modular structure whose first component was launched in 1998. Now the largest artificial body in orbit. The ISS programme is a joint project among five participating space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA.

Hubble Space Telescope

A space telescope launched in 1990, used to study objects both in our own solar system and in galaxies billions of light years away

Cold War

A state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact

heliocentric

A sun-centered universe

parking orbit

A temporary orbit where the spacecraft stays until a final "kick" sends it into a transfer orbit

geostatic

A universe with the Earth not moving

Skylab

America's firt space station launched in 1973

transfer orbit

An intermediate orbit that takes the spacecraft from its parking orbit to its final mission orbit

Apollo-Soyuz

Apollo 18 docked with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in July, 1975

sublunar realm

Aristotle's universe composed of everything beneath the Moon's sphere

superlunar realm

Aristotle's universe composed of everything from the Moon up to the sphere of the fixed stars

Doppler

Compared to the emitted frequency, the received frequency is higher during the approach, identical at the instant of passing by, and lower during the recession

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Created in 1958 to consolidate U.S. space efforts under a single civilian agency and to put a man in space before the U.S.S.R.

mission

Describes why we're going to space and what we hope to accomplish while we're there.

V-2 rocket

Developed in Germany, the world's first ballistic missile

geocentric

Earth-centered universe

Galileo spacecraft

Entered orbit around Jupiter in late 1995, provided detailed images and other data about Jupiter and its moons, and deployed a probe into the planet's dense atmosphere

Mercury Program

Established in 1958, the Mercury Program was NASA'a first human spaceflight program. It's objectives were to place a manned spacecraft in orbital flight around the earth, investigate man's performance capabilities and his ability to function in the environment of space, and recover the man and the spacecraft safely.

Concept of operations (ConOps)

How we plan to conduct the mission, how all of the stakeholders and mission elements will work together to satisfy users

free fall

In orbit, spacecraft (and everything in them) are weightless when they have no contact forces (such as thrust from a rocket engine) acting on them. This weightless condition is free fall, meaning the spacecraft is falling toward Earth because of gravity but missing it continually because of its forward speed.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Launched by NASA in 1999 to study the universe at x-ray wavelengths

Spitzer Space Telescope

Launched in 2003, an infrared observatory

Kepler spacecraft

Launched in 2009, Kepler focuses on only a small sliver of the sky, but monitors more than 100,000 stars to look for any brief, periodic drops in brightness caused when a planet orbiting that star passes in front of it

Echo

Launched on August 12, 1960, an aluminum-coated, 30.4 meter-diameter plastic sphere that passively reflected voice and picture signals

limited by physical constraints

Limited by the capabilities of the equipment such as the lens, the image plane, or the antenna beam pattern

Viking

Marian space porobes that analyzed Martian soil, weather, and atmospheric composition as well as captured more than 4500 spectacular images of the Red Planet's surface

relativity

Motion depends on the perspective or frame of reference of the observer

degree

One part of a circle divided into 360 equal parts

minute of arc

One part of a degree divided into 60 equal parts

flight controllers

Receive and monitor data on the spacecraft's health and decide how to command the spacecraft's functions remotely from Earth

remote-sensing

Satellites used to gather information about the nature and condition of Earth's land, sea, and atmosphere.

Challenger

Space Shuttle that exploded minutes after launch, killing her crew

Cassini

Space probe that arrived at Saturn in 2004 capable of taking accurate measurements and detailed images in a variety of atmospheric conditions and light spectra. It continues to return data.

Voyager

Space probes that invetigated Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. Voyager 2 went on to take revelatory photographs of Uranus and Neptune

Space-based telescopes

Telescopes placed in space above Earth's atmosphere

field-of-view (FOV)

The FOV is the actual area the sensor or communication gear can access at any one time when it focuses on the Earth

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

The James Webb Space Telescope will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. The project is working to a 2018 launch date. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

parallax

The apparent shift in the position of bodies when viewed from different locations

systems engineering

The art and science of designing and building systems that deliver capabilities to meet the user's need

scintillation

The blurring of "starlight" as it passes through the atmosphere that gives stars the appearance of twinkling

space mission architecture

The collection of spacecraft, orbits, launch vehicles, operations systems, and all other things that make a space mission possible

Bus

The collection of subsystems that support the payload

project management

The discipline of planning, organizing, monitoring, and controlling all resources needed to achieve the mission's intended purpose

light year

The distance light travels in one year at a speed of 300,000 km/s [186,000 mi/s]

communications

The exchange of commands and engineering data between a spacecraft and its ground controllers. It includes the processing and transmitting of payload data to users.

Telstar

The first active communications satellite, launched on July 10, 1962, relayed communication between far-flung points on the Earth

Explorer 1

The first satellite successfully launched by the U.S.

red-shift

The lengthening of electromagnetic waves as a source and observer move apart

need

The need (or needs) a mission is addressing—who needs what

Payload

The part of the spacecraft that actually performs the mission

Trajectory

The path an object follows through space

Soyuz

The second-generation Soviet vehicle capable of carrying humans into space. The Soyuz would be able to conduct active maneuvering, orbital rendezvous and docking. These capabilities were all necessary for a flight around the Moon and to support lunar landing.

eccentricity

The shape of an orbit as a ratio of the distance between the two foci and the length of the major axis

field-of-regard (FOR)

The spacecraft's FOR refers to the total area it can access at any one time based on physical limits of sensors or communication gear

upper stage

The stage that provides the extra kicks of energy needed to transfer the spacecraft from its parking orbit to its mission orbit

spectroscopy

The study of radiated energy in visible bands

swath width

The width or diameter of a specific total area on Earth's surface potentially visible at any one time, depending on the sensor's field of regard and the height of its orbit

Apollo Program

U.S. space program whose goal was to put a man on the moon by 1970

stakeholders

Users, sponsors, and other people or organizations who have a stake in the mission's outcome

goal

What we want to accomplish during the mission and how well

objectives

What we want to accomplish during the mission and how well