SPACE

MISSIONS
Hans Joshua F. Farinas
Earth Science Elective
Hipparcos
• It was by European Space Agency
• Very first space mission for measuring the positions, distances, motions, brightness and
colors of stars.
• Observed the celestial sphere for 3.5 years before terminated in March 1993
• Calculations from observations by the main instrument generated the Hipparcos
Catalogue of 118,218 stars
• An auxiliary star mapper pinpointed many more stars with lesser but still unprecedented
accuracy, in the Tycho Catalogue of 1,058,332 stars.
• In December 2013, ESA launched a successor mission to Hipparcos called Gaia.
Hipparcos
Scientific Leader:
Professor Michael Perryman
Launch Date:
August 08, 1989
Launch Vehicle:
Ariane-4 Rocket
Hipparcos helped to:
• Predict the impacts of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter
• Identify stars that will pass close to the Sun
• Establish the distances of stars possessing planets
• Discover that the Milky Way is changing shape
• Identify a group of stars that invaded our Galaxy when it was young
• Alter the cosmic distance scale, making the Universe bigger and younger
• Confirm Einstein's prediction of the effect of gravity on starlight
Voyager 2
Launch Date:
August 20, 1977
Type:
Flyby:
Status:
Successful—Extended Mission in Progress
Alternate Names:
1977-076A, Mariner Jupiter/Saturn B, 10271
Launch Site:
Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA | Launch Complex 41
Launch Vehicle:
Titan IIIE-Centaur (TC-7 / Titan no. 23E-7 / Centaur D-1T)
Destination:
Our Solar System, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Beyond Our Solar System
Voyager 2 (1989)
NASA's Voyager 2, departing from its Jan. 24, 1986 encounter with Uranus, has undergone
major course correction to prepare the spacecraft for its 1989 flyby of the planet Neptune.
August 25
Voyager 2 makes its closest approach to Neptune
First spacecraft to observe Neptune up close and first to visit four planets beyond Earth.
Discovery of six moons:
• Despina
• Galatea
• Larissa
• Proteus
• Naiad
• Thalassa
First images of Neptune's rings
Discovery of the "Great Dark Spot" of Neptune
October 10 & December 5

Voyager 2’s
Camera
were turned
off
COBE
Launch Date:
November 18, 1989
Launch Vehicle:
Delta Rocket
Launched by:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Full name:
Cosmic Background Explorer
Developer:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Three Instruments it carries:
• Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE)
• Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR)
• Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS)
Termination of Instrument Operation:
December 23, 1993
COBE
• COBE’s FIRAS was able to measure the spectrum of
the radiation field 100 times more accurately than
had previously been possible using balloon-borne
detectors in Earth’s atmosphere
• COBE’s DMR produced an all-sky survey that showed
“wrinkles” indicating that the field was isotropic to 1
part in 100,000
• COBE’s DIRBE measured radiation from the
formation of the earliest galaxies.
• In 2006 John Mather, COBE project scientist and
FIRAS team leader, and George Smoot, DMR principal
investigator, won the Nobel Prize for Physics for the
FIRAS and DMR results.
COBE
Science Highlights:
• COBE revolutionized our understanding of the early cosmos.
• It precisely measured and mapped the oldest light in the universe -- the cosmic microwave
background.
• The cosmic microwave background spectrum was measured with a precision of 0.005%.
• The results confirmed the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
• The very precise measurements helped eliminate a great many theories about the Big Bang.
• The mission ushered cosmologists into a new era of precision measurements, paving the way
for deeper exploration of the microwave background by NASA's WMAP mission and ESA's
Planck mission.
Voyager 1
Launch Date:
September 5, 1977
Type:
Flyby:
Status:
Successful—Extended Mission in Progress
Launch Site:
Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA | Launch Complex 41
Launch Vehicle:
Titan IIIE-Centaur (TC-7 / Titan no. 23E-7 / Centaur D-1T)
Destination:
Our Solar System, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Beyond Our Solar
System
Voyager 1 (1990)
February 14:
Solar System Family Portrait
• The spacecraft takes the last images of the mission
at a distance of about 4 billion miles which is the
“Solar System Family Portrait”.
• It is the only series of pictures that captures Venus,
Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune arrayed
about the sun.
• A few key members did not make it in: Mars had little
sunlight, Mercury was too close to the sun, and dwarf
planet Pluto turned out too dim.
Voyager 1’s cameras were turned off
Voyager 1
Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in
August 2012, nearly 35 years after blasting
off, scientists announced Thursday (Sept.
12). As it leaves our solar system behind,
the robotic spacecraft is streaking toward
an encounter with a star called AC +79
3888, which lies 17.6 light-years from
Earth.
References
Nagaraja, M.P. (2019). Hipparcos. Retrieved from https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hipparco
s
European Space Agency. (2019). Hipparcos. Retrieved from http://sci.esa.int/hipparcos/
European Space Agency. (n.d.). Hipparcos. Retrieved from https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/hi
pparcos
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2019). Voyager. Retrieved from https://voyag
er.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2018). Voyager 2. Retrieved from https://sola
rsystem.nasa.gov/missions/voyager-2/in-depth/
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2019). Cobe. Retrieved from https://science.
nasa.gov/missions/cobe
Harland, D. (n.d.). Cosmic Background Explorer: United States satellite. Retrieved from https:
//www.britannica.com/topic/Cosmic-Background-Explorer
Wall, M. (2013). Interstellar traveler: NASA's Voyager 1 Probe on 40,000-year trek to distant s
tar. Retrieved from https://www.space.com/22783-voyager-1-interstellar-space-star-flyby.html
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2015). 'Pale Blue Dot' images turn 25. Retrie
ved from https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/details.php?article_id=43