Most Popular Satellite Mission

Sputnik I
On October 4, 1957, Sputnik I launched from the U.S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome and entered Earth's orbit,
becoming the first human-made object to enter space. The aluminum-alloy sphere orbited our planet 1,440
times over 21 days before losing its signal and, most importantly, sent the entire world into the Space Age.
The Soviet mission shed light on the density of Earth's atmosphere and what made a satellite successful.
Sputnik I remained in orbit until January 4, 1958, when it burned up reentering our atmosphere.

Vostok I
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space on April 12, 1961, when he circled the Earth in
Vostok I. The history-making voyage only lasted 108 minutes before Gagarin ejected himself from the
spacecraft and parachuted back to his home planet (this was part of the plan), but changed the way humans
look up at the stars forever. Before launching Gagarin into the heavens, the U.S.S.R. performed a test mission
using a prototype of the Vostok I along with a dog and man-size dummy.

Apollo 11
Four days after launching from Cape Kennedy in Florida, Neil Armstrong took "one small step for a man, one
giant leap for mankind" on July 20, 1969, and became the first human to walk on the moon as part of the
Apollo 11 mission. Less than 20 minutes later, Buzz Aldrin, who piloted the lunar module, joined his
commander. The two explored the moon on foot for three hours while conducting experiments and collecting
samples. After rejoining fellow astronaut Michael Collins, who also made the voyage, Armstrong and Aldrin
returned to Earth on July 24.

Apollo 13
Apollo 13 launched without incident on April 11, 1970, but just 56 hours into the mission, things took a turn.
Minutes after a live television broadcast in which Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise communicated with
people back home, an explosion within the craft made it clear that the crew would not be exploring the Fra
Mauro area on the moon, as was initially planned. Due to malfunctioning oxygen tanks, both the crew and
everyone in ground control had to come up with numerous on-the-fly fixes to combat lack of power, heat,
water, and excess carbon monoxide to get everyone back to Earth safely. Despite the odds, on April 17, they
did.

STS-51-L
The 25th mission of the United States Space Shuttle program launched on January 28, 1986, and tragically
ended in just 73 seconds. STS-51-L was the tenth mission to be conducted on the Challenger space shuttle, but
a failed rocket booster led to the shuttle's disintegration and death of all seven crew members. The launch
was scheduled to take place on the 22, but was repeatedly pushed back due to bad weather. The mission's
goals were to observe Hailey's Comet, track satellites, and have Christa McAuliffe, a teacher on board, provide
lessons to children in classrooms back home.

Voyager 1
Launched in 1977 along with its spacecraft sibling, Voyager 2, Voyager 1 is still going strong today. Though its
primary mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn—the craft discovered volcanoes on Jupiter's moon and new
details about Saturn's rings—Voyager 1 has gone above and beyond in its exploration…literally. Not only did it
snap a photo of our entire solar system in 1990, but it crossed into interstellar space in 2012, becoming the
first human-made probe to do so.
Mars Pathfinder
After departing Earth on December 4, 1996, Mars Pathfinder didn't reach its namesake until July 4, 1997.
When the 23-pound Sojourner rover reached Mars, becoming the first to ever reach another planet, it
explored the Ares Vallis area of the red planet and analyzed its atmosphere, climate, and geology. There were
concerns about how to land safely on Mars, but a creative approach that surrounded the rover in airbags was
successful. The mission brought in evidence suggesting that Mars once had flowing water and that the
atmosphere is heated by the planet's surface. Sojourner made its final transmission in September, but by then
it was already considered a great success.

The International Space Station

The first pieces of the International Space Station, one from Russia and the other from the United States, left
Earth in the fall of 1998. The two were attached in space and added on to piece by piece until November 2,
2000, when the first crew arrived. On board the ISS, astronauts from all over the world continue to work on all
sorts of experiments, including exploration of the effects microgravity has on the human body. In this test,
they're the guinea pigs. Adjustments, both mechanical and diplomatic, have been required over time, yet the
crew and politicians at home recently celebrated over 20 years of orbiting the Earth, and in 2018, legislation
was approved to extend ISS operations through 2030.

Kepler Mission
On March 7, 2009, Kepler launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission was to "explore the structure
and diversity of planetary systems." While the original Kepler's run came to an end in 2013, a second, K2,
picked up where its predecessor left off in 2014. The mission was expected to last until 2018, but in August of
that year, it was discovered to have fuel remaining. By May of 2016, Kepler had already identified 1,284 new
planets. Of that, only nine were considered to be in a habitable zone.

Cassini-Huygens
After spending an astounding 20 years in space, the Cassini spacecraft and Huygens probe ended their mission
on September 15, 2017. A collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space
Agency, the craft gathered information on Jupiter during a flyby, flew between Saturn's rings, and studied its
moons throughout a full seasonal period. The mission came to an end with a final entry into Saturn's
atmosphere. This decision was made to protect the biological composition of the surrounding moons.

Pioneer
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively, were the first spacecraft to visit the solar
system's most photogenic gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to travel through the
solar system's asteroid belt, a field of orbiting rocks between Mars and Jupiter. Then about a year-and-a-half
after its launch, the spacecraft made the first flyby of the planet Jupiter. It took stunning up-close photos of
the Great Red Spot and the wide swaths of red that band the planet. About a year later, Pioneer 11 flew by
Jupiter, and then moved on to Saturn, where it discovered a couple of previously unknown small moons
around the planet, and a new ring. Both probes have stopped sending data, and are continuing out on their
one-way voyages beyond the solar system.

Voyager

Shortly after the Pioneers made their flybys, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes followed. They made many
important discoveries about Jupiter and Saturn, including rings around Jupiter and the presence of volcanism
on Jupiter's moon, Io. Voyager went on to make the first flybys of Uranus, where it discovered 10 new moons,
and Neptune, where it found that Neptune actually weighs less than astronomers thought. Both Voyager
crafts have enough power to keep transmitting radio signals until at least 2025, and are now exploring the
very edge of the solar system and beginning of interstellar space. Voyager 2 is currently the farthest man-
made object from Earth, at more than a hundred times the distance from the Earth to the sun, and more than
twice as far as Pluto.

WMAP
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), launched in 2001, may not be as well-known, but it
measures with unprecedented accuracy the temperature of the radiation left over from the Big Bang. By
mapping out the fluctuations in the so-called cosmic microwave background radiation, the spacecraft has
heralded a leap forward in cosmological theories about the nature and origin of the universe. Among other
revelations, the data from WMAP revealed a much more precise estimate for the age of the universe ? 13.7
billion years ? and confirmed that about 95 percent of it is composed of poorly understood things called dark
matter and dark energy.

Spitzer
Another spacecraft with a profound effect on cosmology and astrophysics is the Spitzer Space Telescope,
which observed the heavens through infrared light. This light, which has a longer wavelength than visual light,
is mostly blocked by Earth's atmosphere. In addition to taking gorgeous photos of galaxies, nebulae and stars,
the telescope has made numerous groundbreaking scientific discoveries. In 2005 Spitzer became the first
telescope to detect light from extrasolar planets (most of these distant worlds are detected only through
secondary, gravitational effects on their suns). In another observation, astronomers think the telescope may
have even captured light from some of the first stars born in the universe.

Spirit & Opportunity

Intended for just a 90-day mission, these workhorse Mars rovers have far outdone themselves, and are still
chugging away on the red planet more than five years after landing. Spirit and Opportunity, the twin Mars
Exploration Rovers, landed on opposite sides of the planet in January 2004. Since then, they have been
traveling all over the surface, poking into craters and roving over unexplored hills. Among their major finds is
evidence that the surface of Mars once had liquid water. (A tip of the hat to Sojourner rover, which brought
full-color close-ups of Mars in 1997, just as the Internet was becoming wildly popular, thereby earning a
special place in the hearts of millions who enjoyed unprecedented access to NASA mission photos.)

Cassini-Huygens
This joint NASA/ESA spacecraft, launched in 1997, reached its destination, Saturn, in 2004. Since then it has
been in orbit around the ringed world, taking one stunning snapshot after another of the planets rings, moons
and weather. The Hugyens probe separated from Cassini and made a special trip to the moon Titan, where it
descended through the atmosphere and landed on solid ground in 2005. Though previous spacecraft have
visited Saturn, Cassini is the first to orbit it and study the system in detail.

Chandra
Since 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has been scanning the skies in X-ray light, looking at some of the
most distant and bizarre astronomical events. Because Earth's pesky atmosphere blocks out most X-rays,
astronomers couldn't view the universe in this high-energy, short-wavelength light until they sent Chandra up
to space. The observatory has such high-resolution mirrors, it can see X-ray sources 100 times fainter than any
previous X-ray telescope. Among other firsts, Chandra showed scientists the first glimpse of the crushed star
left over after a supernova when it observed the remnant Cassiopeia A.

Viking
When NASA's Viking 1 probe touched-down on Mars in July 1976, it was the first time a man-made object had
soft-landed on the red planet. (Though the Soviet Mars 2 and 3 probes did land on the surface, they failed
upon landing). The Viking 1 lander also holds the title of longest-running Mars surface mission, with a total
duration of 6 years and 116 days. The spacecraft also sent the first color pictures back from the Martian
surface, showing us what that mysterious red dot looks like from the ground for the first time.

Hubble
The most-loved of all NASA spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope has name recognition around the world.
Its photos have changed the way everyday people figure themselves into the cosmos. The observatory has
also radically changed science, making breakthroughs on astronomical issues too numerous to count. By finally
sending up an optical telescope to peer at the sky from beyond Earth's turbulent atmosphere, NASA
developed a tool that could reveal stars, planets, nebulae and galaxies in all their fully-detailed glory.

Apollo
NASA's best space science mission? The one humans got to tag along on, of course! Not only was sending a
man to the moon monumental for human history, but the Apollo trips were the first to bring celestial stuff
back to Earth and greatly advanced our scientific understanding of the moon. Before Apollo, many people
weren't even convinced the moon wasn't made out of cheese (well? non-scientists at least). By studying the
moon up close and personal, and then carting? loads of moon rocks home, the Apollo astronauts gathered
data that helped us learn how old the moon is, what it's made out of, and even how it might have begun.

Reference:
https://www.space.com/14532-10-greatest-nasa-science-missions-countdown.html
 Republic of the Philippines
Bulacan Agricultural State College
INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED TECHNOLOGY
Pinaod, San Ildefonso, Bulacan

SATELLITE GEODESY

ASSIGNMENT #

SUBMITTED BY

SATURAY, RODRIGO JR. S.

SUBMITTED TO

ENGR. MARCHEL ANTHONY V. CO

DATE

March 7, 2019