Spacecraft are vehicles designed to carry humans safely into space and back down again without crushing them during launch, reaching their destinations alive and undamaged, before returning safely back down again.
Spacecraft have been deployed across our solar system and beyond in order to investigate other bodies in our galaxy and beyond. While some remain orbiting planets or moons, others actually visit their surfaces directly.
Space Stations
Since 1971, several space stations have been launched into orbit and hosted astronauts for long duration missions. Salyut 1 was the first modular station, followed by Mir and then finally the International Space Station (ISS).
Astronauts live and conduct research aboard the International Space Station that benefits people back on Earth. They study how microgravity affects biology and nonliving materials, observe Earth from space, test fundamental physics principles and search for dark matter/antimatter particles.
They also work to maintain and repair the International Space Station, a larger than six-bedroom house structure featuring two bathrooms, gym equipment and 360 degree bay window for viewing 360 degrees of space. There are ports to allow visiting craft to dock into its port system. Congress designated the ISS as a national laboratory to maximize its use.
Rockets
Rockets are tall and thin vehicles used to carry people or other objects into space, such as satellites or spacecraft such as rovers and probes. Learn the different parts of a rocket, as well as any upcoming launches nearby.
Rocket engines use rocket propellant tanks to accelerate propellant before firing it from an open nozzle at high speeds in order to generate thrust. Rockets may use either liquid or solid fuel and can operate both within space and Earth’s atmosphere.
OSIRIS-REx returned to Earth in 2024 while NASA’s New Horizons is on a mission to examine the Kuiper belt. China plans on sending their spacecraft, Beresheet 2, on an orbiter/rover mission to the Moon by 2025 as part of their Beresheet 2 Artemis Program which will see the first female and first person of color land since Apollo 17’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972 – all part of creating an infrastructure for future trips to Mars.
Satellites
Earth and other planets are home to hundreds of natural satellites and thousands of man-made ones circling in orbit, which play an essential role in governments, businesses and societies worldwide. Communications satellites help department stores manage inventory control while banks offer instant credit card authorization in remote towns through automated teller service and video conference technology; companies use video conference satellites for video conferences with workers separated by rough terrain or languages while Earth observation satellites help meteorologists monitor crops’ growth or monitor forest fires and hurricanes as they progress across their path.
Satellites fly so high, that they can survey large portions of Earth at once. Many satellites boast powerful magnification technologies which enable scientists to observe tiny objects on the ground from miles above. Satellites also track stars, planets and asteroids.
Rovers
Rovers used to explore Mars and other planets were an advanced step in spacecraft technology, progressing beyond landers. Capable of moving around surfaces quickly while sending valuable images and information back home in near real-time, these vehicles represented a step change from previous spacecraft technologies.
Rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of Mars to conduct soil analyses for signs of past life. China’s Zhurong discovered that Utopia Planitia on Mars has soil similar to desert sand here on Earth; additionally it features cameras, spectrometers for checking rock chemical composition, and ground-penetrating radar as a suite of instruments.
The Curiosity rover is on an expedition to Mars to learn whether life ever existed there, powered by a nuclear-powered thermoelectric generator and equipped with cameras and spectrometers for analysis.
Interplanetary and Interstellar Missions
Researchers working on interplanetary and interstellar missions are trying to convince humans they’re ready for interplanetary travel, while Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab is studying an ambitious project called Interstellar Probe that would launch aboard NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and use Jupiter’s gravity assist to cross the solar system to Saturn before using another gravity assist to reach speed for further interstellar exploration of Alpha Centauri and beyond.
The probes would use heat shields designed to withstand a flyby of the sun’s intense surface, with goals including searching for phenomena obscured by its heliosphere such as galactic cosmic rays; light from exploding stars; disks of debris where planets are forming around other suns; galactic cosmic rays and light from explosions among others.
Interstellar Probe would likely remain functional long after its mission in interstellar space was over, unlike Voyagers which were intended only to last billions of years before penetrating the termination shock or heliopause.