Robotic spacecraft

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(Redirected from Unmanned space missions)

An artist's interpretation of the MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury

A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost and lower risk factors. In addition, some planetary destinations such as Venus or the vicinity of Jupiter are too hostile for human survival, given current technology. Outer planets such as Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are too distant to reach with current crewed spaceflight technology, so telerobotic probes are the only way to explore them.

Many artificial satellites are robotic spacecraft, as are many landers and rovers.

1 History
2 Design
3 Control
4 List of space probes
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

The first space mission, Sputnik 1, was an artificial satellite put into Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. On 3 November 1957, the Soviets orbited Sputnik 2, the first to carry a living animal into space – a dog.

The United States achieved its first successful space probe launch with the orbit of Explorer I on 31 January 1958. Explorer I weighed less than 14 kilograms compared to 83.6 kg and 508.3 kg for Sputniks 1 and 2 respectively. Nonetheless, Explorer I detected a narrow band of radiation surrounding the Earth, named the Van Allen belts after the scientist whose equipment detected it.

Only six other countries have successfully launched missions using their own vehicles: France (1965), Japan (1970), China (1970), the United Kingdom (1971), India (1981) and Israel (1988).

Most American space probe missions have been coordinated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and European missions by the European Space Operations Centre, part of the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA has conducted relatively fewer space exploration missions in the past (one example is the Giotto mission, which encountered comet Halley), but have launched several interplanetary spacecraft in recent years (e.g. Rosetta space probe, Mars Express, Venus Express). ESA has, however, launched many spacecraft to carry out astronomy, and is a collaborator with NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope. There have been many successful Russian space missions. There have also been a few Japanese, Chinese and Indian missions.

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In spacecraft design, the United States Air Force considers a vehicle to consist of the mission payload and the bus (or platform). The bus provides physical structure, thermal control, electrical power, attitude control and telemetry, tracking and commanding.^[1]

Robotic spacecraft use telemetry to radio back to Earth acquired data and vehicle status information. Although generally referred to as "remotely-controlled" or "telerobotic", the earliest orbital spacecraft -- such as Sputnik 1 and Explorer I -- did not receive control signals from Earth. Soon after these first spacecraft, command systems were developed to allow remote control from the ground. Increased autonomy is important for distant probes where the light travel time prevents rapid decision and control from Earth. Newer probes such as Cassini-Huygens and the Mars Exploration Rovers are highly autonomous and use on-board computers to operate independently for extended periods of time.

This is a condensed version of the more detailed List of Solar System probes.

See also: Robotic exploration of the Moon

Luna program — Soviet Lunar exploration (1959–1976).
Ranger program — US Lunar hard-landing probes (1961–1965).
Zond program — Soviet Lunar exploration (1964–1970).
Surveyor program — US Lunar soft-landing probe (1966–1968).
Lunar Orbiter program — US Lunar orbital (1966–1967).
Lunokhod program — Soviet Lunar Rover probes (1970–1973).
Muses-A mission (Hiten and Hagoromo) — Japanese Lunar orbital and hard-landing probes (1990–1993).
Clementine — US Lunar orbital (1998).
Lunar Prospector — US Lunar orbital (1998–1999).
Smart 1 — European Lunar orbital (2003).
SELENE — Japanese lunar orbiter (2007).

See also: Exploration of Mars

Zond program — failed Soviet flyby probe
Mars probe program — Soviet orbiters and landers
Viking program — Two US orbiters and landers (1974)
Phobos program — Failed Soviet orbiters and Phobos landers
Mars Pathfinder — Lander and wheeled robot (1997)
Mars Surveyor '98 program (Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander) — Failed US probes
Mars Global Surveyor - US Orbiter
Mars Odyssey — US orbiter
Mars Observer — failed US Mars orbiter
Mars Express (Mars Express Orbiter and Beagle 2) — European orbiter and failed lander 2003
Mars Exploration Rovers — US rovers (2004)
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — US, launched 2005
Phoenix — launched August 3, 2007
Mars Science Laboratory — US, to be launched 2009

Venera program — Soviet Venus orbiter and lander
Vega program — Soviet mission to Venus and Comet Halley
Zond program — Soviet flyby missions to the Moon, Venus, and Mars
Pioneer Venus project — US Venus orbiter
Mariner program — US Mercury, Venus and Mars flybys
Pioneer program — US Jupiter and Saturn flybys
Voyager program — US Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune flyby and study of interstellar space
Giotto mission — European flyby of Comet Halley (1986)
Sakigake probe — Japanese flyby of Comet Halley (1986)
Suisei probe — Japanese flyby of Comet Halley (1986)
Galileo probe — US Jupiter orbiter and atmosphere probe
Magellan probe — US Venus orbiter
Cassini-Huygens — US-European Saturn orbiter and Titan lander Huygens (1997–present)
NEAR Shoemaker — US asteroid lander, launched 1996
Deep Space 1 — US comet/asteroid flyby, 1998–2000
Stardust probe — US comet flyby and sample return, launched 1999, returned January 15, 2006
Genesis — first solar wind sample return mission, 2001–2004 (crash)
CONTOUR — US comet flyby mission; launch failure in 2003
Hayabusa — Japanese asteroid orbiter, lander and sample return, launched 2003
Rosetta — European comet orbiter and lander (Philae); launched 2004
MESSENGER — US Mercury orbiter, launched 2004
Deep Impact — successful US comet impactor, launched 2005
Venus Express — ESA probe to be sent for the observation of the Venus's weather in 2005.
New Horizons — launched on January 19, 2006, it will be the first probe to visit Pluto (in July 2015)
Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), scheduled to launch in the summer of 2008.