No nation had successfully sent a human into space until 12 April 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made one orbit aboard Vostok 1. Gagarin’s flight triggered the Space Race between Russia and America and marked humanity’s venture into outer space. Prior to World War II, Germany experimented with various military space programs involving human […]
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In 1991, the United States Postal Service released a set of stamps depicting each planet and noting which spacecraft had explored it. Pluto’s stamp featured an artist’s rendition of an uninhabitable planet with no features and the words: “NOT YET EXPLLORED.” New Horizons successfully reached Pluto and discovered that its moons Charon, Nix, Hydra and
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Stern and his team struggled for years to launch their mission, facing an intense race against time: only four years were available for designing, launching and reaching Jupiter for gravity assistance. New Horizons would likely make its first encounter with Pluto and Charon during its trek through the Kuiper Belt – an outer region of
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Since World War II, spacecraft have launched satellites into orbit, landed astronauts on the moon, and probed our solar system – many owing their existence to partnerships formed during the conflict. Wernher von Braun and his team formed one such collaboration, creating the rocket which propelled Yuri Gagarin into space aboard Vostok 1. His journey
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Mars is home to an exciting new breed of spacecraft designed to facilitate scientific study and discovery, and one day send humans there. These spacecraft offer unprecedented access for scientific analysis. The Lander is designed in the shape of a tetrahedron with sides that open like petals, housing cameras, weather stations and a six-wheeled rover
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