Page 27 - Intro to Space Sciences Spacecraft Applications

Introduction to Space Sciences and Spacecraft Applications
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Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, Mon-
golia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United
Kingdom, Vietnam, and the United States.
A listing of manned spaceflight missions, crews, and mission highlights
through the first flight of the Space Shuttle is given in Appendix A.

Unmanned Spaceflight

In addition to manned spacecraft, the United States, the Soviet Union/
Russia, and, more recently, many other countries have developed,
launched, and operated hundreds of unmanned spacecraft designed to per-
form military, national interest, scientific, and commercial applications.
The following sections highlight some of the application areas in which
these spacecraft perform and the evolution of spacecraft within each area.

Earth Observation. Due to the unique vantage point of space, many
satellites are designed to observe the earth to collect data on the environ-
ment. TZROS I (Television Infrared Observation Satellite), the first weath-
er satellite, was launched in April 1960 and returned over 22,500 pictures
of the earth. TIROS, NOM (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration), GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satel-
lite), and the military DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program)
systems monitor the earth’s weather, allowing timely prediction of cli-
matic changes and their effects on the planet.
In September 1991, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS)
was deployed from the Space Shuttle to conduct the first comprehensive
studies of the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere regions of the
atmosphere. The total uzune mapping spectrometer (TOMS), a NASA
instrument that “hitched a ride” on U.S. Nimbus and SovietRussian
Meteor weather satellites, discovered and continues to monitor the “ozone
hole” region of dangerously depleted ozone levels which appears over
Antarctica each fall. Missions such as these allow researchers to map the
short- and long-term changes occumng in the atmosphere and to deter-
mine what effects may be attributable to humans.
ERTS I (Earth Resources Technology Satellite) was launched in July
1972 into an orbit over the poles and used high-resolution electronic cam-
eras to collect imagery on geology, crops, population, and pollution.
ERTS satellites evolved into the Landsat series which continues to focus