On April 12, our country celebrated the 50th anniversary of space exploration - Cosmonautics Day. This is a national holiday. It seems familiar to us that spaceships start from the Earth. Dockings of spacecraft take place in high celestial distances. Cosmonauts live and work in space stations for months, automatic stations go to other planets. You can say “what is special about this?”
But just recently, space flights were spoken of as science fiction. And on October 4, 1957, a new era began - the era of space exploration.
Constructors
Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Eduardovich -
Russian scientist who was one of the first to think about space flight.
The fate and life of the scientist are unusual and interesting. The first half of Kostya Tsiolkovsky's childhood was normal, like all children. Already at an advanced age, Konstantin Eduardovich recalled how he liked to climb trees, climb onto the roofs of houses, jump from great heights to experience the feeling of free fall. The second childhood began when, ill with scarlet fever, he almost completely lost his hearing. Deafness caused the boy not only domestic inconvenience and moral suffering. She threatened to slow down his physical and mental development.
Another grief befell Kostya: his mother died. The family was left with a father, a younger brother and an illiterate aunt. The boy was left to himself.
Deprived of many joys and impressions due to illness, Kostya reads a lot, constantly comprehending what he read. He invents what has been invented long ago. But he invents himself. For example, a lathe. In the courtyard of the house, windmills built by him spin in the wind, self-propelled sailing carts run against the wind.
He dreams of space travel. Avidly reads books on physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics. Realizing that his capable, but deaf son will not be accepted into any educational institution, his father decides to send sixteen-year-old Kostya to Moscow for self-education. Kostya rents a corner in Moscow and sits in free libraries from morning to evening. His father sends him 15-20 rubles a month, while Kostya, eating black bread and drinking tea, spends 90 kopecks a month on food! With the rest of the money he buys retorts, books, reagents. The following years were also difficult. He suffered a lot from bureaucratic indifference to his works and projects. He fell ill, lost heart, but gathered again, made calculations, wrote books.
Now we already know that Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is the pride of Russia, one of the fathers of astronautics, a great scientist. And many of us are surprised to learn that the great scientist did not go to school, did not have any scientific degrees, lived in Kaluga in an ordinary wooden house for the last years and did not hear anything, but the whole world is now recognized as a genius by the one who first drew for mankind's path to other worlds and stars:
Tsiolkovsky's ideas were developed by Friedrich Arturovich Zander and Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk.
All the most cherished dreams of the founders of astronautics were realized by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
Friedrich Arturovich Zander (1887-1933)
Yuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev
Tsiolkovsky's ideas were developed by Friedrich Arturovich Zander and Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk. All the most cherished dreams of the founders of astronautics were realized by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
On this day, the first artificial Earth satellite was launched. The space age has begun. The first satellite of the Earth was a shiny ball of aluminum alloys and was small - 58 cm in diameter, weighing 83.6 kg. The device had two-meter mustache-antennas, and two radio transmitters were placed inside. The satellite's speed was 28,800 km/h. In an hour and a half, the satellite circled the entire globe, and in a day of flight it made 15 revolutions. There are many satellites currently in orbit around the earth. Some are used for television and radio communication, others are scientific laboratories.
Scientists were faced with the task of putting a living creature into orbit.
And dogs paved the way into space for man. Animal testing began as early as 1949. The first "cosmonauts" were recruited in: doorways - the first detachment of dogs. A total of 32 dogs were caught.
They decided to take the dogs as test subjects, because. scientists knew how they behave, understood the structural features of the body. In addition, dogs are not capricious, they are easy to train. And the mongrels were chosen because the doctors believed that from the first day they had to fight for survival, besides, they were unpretentious and very quickly get used to the staff. Dogs had to meet the set standards: no heavier than 6 kilograms and no taller than 35 cm. Remembering that dogs would have to "show off" on the pages of newspapers, they selected "objects" prettier, slimmer and with smart muzzles. They were trained on a vibration stand, a centrifuge, in a pressure chamber: For space travel, a hermetic cabin was made, which was attached to the nose of the rocket.
The first dog start took place on July 22, 1951 - the mongrels Dezik and Gypsy withstood it successfully! Gypsy and Dezik climbed 110 km, then the cabin with them fell freely to a height of 7 km.
Since 1952, they began to work out the flights of animals in spacesuits. The suit was made of rubberized fabric in the form of a bag with two closed sleeves for the front paws. A detachable helmet made of transparent plexiglass was attached to it. In addition, they developed an ejection cart, on which a tray with a dog was placed, as well as equipment. This design was fired at high altitude from a falling cabin and descended by parachute.
On August 20, it was announced that the descent vehicle had made a soft landing and the dogs Belka and Strelka returned safely to earth. But not only, 21 gray and 19 white mice flew.
Belka and Strelka were already real astronauts. What were the astronauts trained in?
Dogs have passed all kinds of tests. They can stay in the cabin for quite a long time without moving, they can endure large overloads, vibrations. Animals are not afraid of rumors, they know how to sit in their experimental equipment, making it possible to record the biocurrents of the heart, muscles, brain, blood pressure, breathing patterns, etc.
On television they showed footage of the flight of Belka and Strelka. It was clearly visible how they tumbled in weightlessness. And, if Strelka was wary of everything, then Squirrel happily raged and even barked.
Belka and Strelka became everyone's favorites. They were taken to kindergartens, schools, orphanages.
There were 18 days left before manned space flight.
Male composition
In the Soviet Union, only January 5, 1959. a decision was made to select people and prepare them for space flight. The question of whom to prepare for the flight was controversial. Doctors argued that only they, the engineers, believed that a person from their midst should fly into space. But the choice fell on fighter pilots, because they are really the closest to space among all professions: they fly at high altitudes in special suits, endure overloads, have a parachute jump, keep in touch with command posts. Resourceful, disciplined, well aware of jet aircraft. Out of 3,000 fighter pilots, 20 were selected.
A special medical commission was created, mainly from military doctors. The requirements for astronauts are as follows: firstly, excellent health with a double or triple margin of safety; secondly, a sincere desire to engage in a new and dangerous business, the ability to develop in oneself the beginnings of creative research activity; thirdly, to meet the requirements for individual parameters: age 25–30 years old, height 165–170 cm, weight 70–72 kg and no more! Weeded mercilessly. The slightest disturbance in the body was removed immediately.
The management decided to select a few people from 20 cosmonauts for the first flight. On January 17 and 18, 1961, the astronauts were given an exam. As a result, the selection committee allocated six to prepare for flights. Before you are portraits of astronauts. It included, in order of priority: Yu.A. Gagarin, G.S. Titov, G.G. Nelyubov, A.N. Nikolaev, V.F. Bykovsky, P.R. Popovich. On April 5, 1961, all six cosmonauts flew to the cosmodrome. It was not easy to choose the first of the cosmonauts equal in health, training, courage. This task was solved by specialists and the head of the cosmonaut group N.P. Kamanin. They became Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. On April 9, the decision of the State Commission was announced to the cosmonauts.
Veterans of Baikonur claim that on the night of April 12, no one slept at the cosmodrome, except for the astronauts. At 3 am on April 12, the final checks of all the systems of the Vostok spacecraft began. The rocket was illuminated by powerful searchlights. At 5.30 am, Evgeny Anatolievich Karpov lifted the cosmonauts. They look cheerful. We started physical exercises, then breakfast and a medical examination. At 6.00 a meeting of the State Commission, the decision was confirmed: Yu.A. was the first to fly into space. Gagarin. They sign him a flight assignment. It was a sunny, warm day, tulips were blooming all around in the steppe. The rocket shone brightly in the sun. 2-3 minutes were allotted for parting, and ten minutes passed. Gagarin was put on the ship 2 hours before the start. At this time, the rocket is refueled, and as the tanks are filled, it “dresses” exactly in a snow coat and soars. Then they give power, check the equipment. One of the sensors indicates that there is no reliable contact in the lid. Found ... Done ... Closed the lid again. The site was empty. And the famous Gagarin's "Let's go!". The rocket slowly, as if reluctantly, spewing an avalanche of fire, rises from the start and rapidly goes into the sky. Soon the rocket disappeared from view. An agonizing wait ensued.
Female composition
Valentina TereshkovaBorn in the village of Bolshoe Maslennikovo, Yaroslavl Region, in a peasant family of immigrants from Belarus (father - from near Mogilev, mother - from the village of Eremeevshchina, Dubrovensky District). As Valentina Vladimirovna herself said, in her childhood she spoke Belarusian with her relatives. Father is a tractor driver, mother is a textile factory worker. Drafted into the Red Army in 1939, Valentina's father died in the Soviet-Finnish War.
In 1945, the girl entered secondary school No. 32 in the city of Yaroslavl, from which she graduated from seven classes in 1953. To help the family, in 1954, Valentina went to work at the Yaroslavl Tire Plant as a bracelet maker, at the same time enrolling in evening classes at a school for working youth. Since 1959, she went in for parachuting at the Yaroslavl flying club (performed 90 jumps). Continuing to work at the Krasny Perekop textile mill, from 1955 to 1960, Valentina took part-time education at the technical school of light industry. From August 11, 1960 - the released secretary of the Komsomol committee of the Krasny Perekop plant.
In the cosmonaut corps
After the first successful flights of Soviet cosmonauts, Sergei Korolev had the idea to launch a female cosmonaut into space. At the beginning of 1962, the search for applicants began according to the following criteria: a parachutist, under the age of 30, up to 170 centimeters tall and weighing up to 70 kilograms. Five of the hundreds of candidates were selected: Zhanna Yorkina, Tatyana Kuznetsova, Valentina Ponomaryova, Irina Solovyova and Valentina Tereshkova.
Immediately after being accepted into the cosmonaut corps, Valentina Tereshkova, along with the rest of the girls, was called up for urgent military service with the rank of privates.
Training
Valentina Tereshkova was enrolled in the cosmonaut corps on March 12, 1962 and began to be trained as a student-cosmonaut of the 2nd detachment. On November 29, 1962, she passed the final exams in the OKP with "excellent". Since December 1, 1962, Tereshkova has been a cosmonaut of the 1st detachment of the 1st department. From June 16, 1963, that is, immediately after the flight, she became an instructor-cosmonaut of the 1st detachment and was in this position until March 14, 1966.
During the training, she underwent training on the body's resistance to the factors of space flight. The trainings included a thermal chamber, where it was necessary to be in a flight suit at a temperature of +70 ° C and a humidity of 30%, a sound chamber - a room isolated from sounds, where each candidate had to spend 10 days.
Zero gravity training was carried out on the MiG-15. When performing a special aerobatics maneuver - a parabolic slide - weightlessness was established inside the aircraft for 40 seconds, and there were 3-4 such sessions per flight. During each session, it was necessary to complete the next task: write a first and last name, try to eat, talk on the radio.
Particular attention was paid to parachute training, since the cosmonaut ejected and landed separately on a parachute just before landing. Since there was always a risk of splashdown of the descent vehicle, training was also carried out on parachute jumps into the sea, in a technological, that is, not fitted to size, spacesuit.
Savitskaya Svetlana Evgenievna- Russian cosmonaut. She was born on August 8, 1948 in Moscow. Daughter of twice Hero of the Soviet Union Air Marshal Yevgeny Yakovlevich Savitsky. After graduating from high school, she entered the institute and at the same time sits at the helm of the aircraft. Mastered the following types of aircraft: MiG-15, MiG-17, E-33, E-66B. Engaged in parachute training. Set 3 world records in group skydiving from the stratosphere and 15 world records in jet aircraft. Absolute world champion in aerobatics on piston aircraft (1970). For her sporting achievements in 1970 she was awarded the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. In 1971 she graduated from the Central Flight Technical School under the Central Committee of the DOSAAF of the USSR, and in 1972 from the Moscow Aviation Institute named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze. After graduation, she worked as an instructor pilot. Since 1976, having completed a course at the test pilot school, he was a test pilot of the Ministry of Aviation Industry of the USSR. During her work as a test pilot, she mastered more than 20 types of aircraft, has the qualification of "Test Pilot 2nd Class". Since 1980 in the cosmonaut corps (1980 Group of women cosmonauts No. 2). Completed a full training course for space flights aboard the Soyuz T-type spacecraft and the Salyut orbital station. From August 19 to 27, 1982, she made her first space flight as a cosmonaut-researcher on the Soyuz T-7 spacecraft. She worked on board the Salyut-7 orbital station. The flight duration was 7 days 21 hours 52 minutes 24 seconds. From July 17 to July 25, 1984, she made her second space flight as a flight engineer on the Soyuz T-12 spacecraft. While working on board the Salyut-7 orbital station on July 25, 1984, she was the first woman to make a spacewalk. The time spent in outer space was 3 hours 35 minutes. The duration of the space flight was 11 days 19 hours 14 minutes 36 seconds. For 2 flights into space, she flew 19 days 17 hours 7 minutes. After the second space flight, she worked at NPO Energia (Deputy Head of the Department of the Chief Designer). He has the qualification of an instructor-cosmonaut-test 2nd class. In the late 80s, she was engaged in social work, was the first deputy chairman of the Soviet Peace Fund. Since 1989, he has been increasingly involved in political activities. In 1989 - 1991 she was a People's Deputy of the USSR. In 1990 - 1993 she was a People's Deputy of the Russian Federation. In 1993, she left the cosmonaut corps, and in 1994 she left NPO Energia and concentrated entirely on political activities. Member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the first and second convocations (since 1993; Communist Party faction). Member of the Defense Committee. From January 16 to January 31, 1996, she headed the Interim Commission for the Control of the Electronic Voting System. Member of the Central Council of the All-Russian Social and Political Movement "Spiritual Heritage".
Elena Vladimirovna Kondakova (born 1957 in Mytishchi) was the third Russian female cosmonaut and the first woman to make a long-term space flight. Her first flight into space took place on October 4, 1994 as part of the Soyuz TM-20 expedition, returning to Earth on March 22, 1995 after a 5-month flight on the Mir orbital station. Kondakova's second flight was as a specialist on the American space shuttle Atlantis (Space Shuttle Atlantis) as part of the Atlantis STS-84 expedition in May 1997. She was included in the cosmonaut corps in 1989.
Since 1999 - Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the United Russia party.
The world's first artificial Earth satellite was launched in the USSR on October 4, 1957. On that day, our Motherland raised the flag of a new era in the scientific and technological progress of mankind. That same year we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. These events and dates are connected with the logic of history. In a short time, an agrarian, industrially backward country turned into an industrial power capable of realizing the most daring dreams of mankind. Since then, a large number of spacecraft of various types have been created in our country - artificial Earth satellites (AES), manned spacecraft (PCS), orbital stations (OS), interplanetary automatic stations (MAC). A broad front of scientific research in near-Earth space has been launched. The Moon, Mars, Venus became available for direct study. Depending on the tasks to be solved, artificial satellites of the Earth are divided into scientific, meteorological, navigation, communications, oceanographic, exploring natural resources, etc. Following the USSR, the United States went into space (February 1, 1958), launching the Explorer-1 satellite. France became the third space power (November 26, 1965, Asterix-1 satellite); fourth - Japan (February 11, 1970, Osumi satellite); fifth - China (April 24, 1970, Dongfanghong satellite); sixth - Great Britain (October 28, 1971, Prospero satellite); seventh - India (July 18, 1980, Rohini satellite). Each of the mentioned satellites was launched into orbit by a domestic launch vehicle.
The first artificial satellite was a ball with a diameter of 58 cm and a weight of 83.6 kg. It had an elongated elliptical orbit with a height of 228 km at perigee and 947 km at apogee and existed as a cosmic body for about three months. In addition to verifying the correctness of basic calculations and technical solutions, it was the first to measure the density of the upper atmosphere and obtain data on the propagation of radio signals in the ionosphere.
The second Soviet satellite was launched on November 3, 1957. The dog Laika was on it, biological and astrophysical studies were carried out. The third Soviet satellite (the world's first scientific geophysical laboratory) was put into orbit on May 15, 1958, a wide program of scientific research was carried out, and the outer zone of the radiation belts was discovered. Later in our country, satellites for various purposes were developed and launched. Satellites of the "Kosmos" series are launched (scientific research in the field of astrophysics, geophysics, medicine and biology, the study of natural resources, etc.), meteorological satellites of the "Meteor" series, communications satellites, scientific stations and for the study of solar activity (AES "Prognoz") and etc.
Just three and a half years after the launch of the first satellite, a man, a citizen of the USSR, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, flew into outer space. On April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft, piloted by cosmonaut Yu. Gagarin, was launched into near-Earth orbit in the USSR. His flight lasted 108 minutes. Yu. Gagarin was the first person to make visual observations of the earth's surface from space. The program of manned flights on the Vostok spacecraft became the foundation on which the development of domestic manned cosmonautics was based. On August 6, 1961, pilot-cosmonaut G. Titov photographed the Earth from space for the first time. This date can be considered the beginning of systematic space photography of the Earth. In the USSR, the first television image of the Earth was obtained from the Molniya-1 satellite in 1966 from a distance of 40,000 km.
The logic of the development of astronautics dictated the next steps in space exploration. A new manned spacecraft "Soyuz" was created. Long-term manned orbital stations (OS) made it possible to systematically and purposefully explore near-Earth space. The Salyut long-term orbital station is a new type of spacecraft. The high degree of automation of its onboard equipment and all systems makes it possible to conduct a diverse program of research on the Earth's natural resources. The first Salyut OS was launched in April 1971. In June 1971, cosmonauts G. Dobrovolsky, V. Volkov and V. Patsaev carried out the first multi-day watch at the Salyut station. In 1975, cosmonauts P. Klimuk and V. Sevastyanov made a 63-day flight aboard the Salyut-4 station, they delivered extensive materials on the study of natural resources to Earth. The integrated survey covered the territory of the USSR in the middle and southern latitudes.
On the Soyuz-22 spacecraft (1976, cosmonauts V. Bykovsky and V. Aksenov), the earth's surface was photographed with an MKF-6 camera developed in the GDR and the USSR and manufactured in the GDR. The camera allowed shooting in 6 ranges of the spectrum of electromagnetic oscillations. The cosmonauts delivered to Earth over 2000 images, each of which covers an area of 165X115 km. The main feature of photographs taken with the MKF-6 camera is the ability to obtain combinations of images taken in different parts of the spectrum. In such images, the light transmission does not correspond to the real colors of natural objects, but is used to increase the contrast between objects of different brightness, i.e., a combination of filters allows you to shade the studied objects in the desired range of colors.
A large amount of work in the field of Earth research from space was carried out from the Salyut-6 orbital station of the second generation, launched in September 1977. This station had two docking nodes. With the help of the Progress transport cargo ship (created on the basis of the Soyuz spacecraft), fuel, food, scientific equipment, etc. were delivered to it. This made it possible to increase the duration of flights. For the first time, the complex "Salyut-6" - "Soyuz" - "Progress" worked in near-Earth space. At the Salyut-6 station, the flight of which lasted 4 years 11 months (and in manned mode - 676 days), 5 long flights were made (96, 140, 175, 185 and 75 days). In addition to long-term flights (expeditions), participants of short-term (one week) visiting expeditions worked together with the main crews at the Salyut-6 station. On board the Salyut-6 orbital station and Soyuz spacecraft from March 1978 to May 1981. flights were carried out by international crews from citizens of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, Cuba, MPR, SRR. These flights were carried out in accordance with the program of joint work in the field of exploration and use of outer space, within the framework of multilateral cooperation between the countries of the socialist community, which was called "Intercosmos".
On April 19, 1982, the Salyut-7 long-term orbital station, which is a modernized version of the Salyut-6 station, was put into orbit. The PKK Soyuz was replaced by new, more modern ships of the Soyuz-T series (the first test manned flight of the PKK of this series was made in 1980).
On May 13, 1982, the Soyuz T-5 spacecraft was launched with cosmonauts V. Lebedev and A. Berezov. This flight was the longest in the history of astronautics, it lasted 211 days. A significant place in the work was given to the study of natural resources of the Earth. To this end, the cosmonauts regularly observed and photographed the earth's surface and the waters of the World Ocean. About 20 thousand images of the earth's surface have been received. During their flight, V. Lebedev and A. Berezovoy met cosmonauts twice, from Earth. On July 25, 1982, an international crew consisting of pilot-cosmonauts V. Dzhanibekov, A. Ivanchenkov and French citizen Jean-Loup Chretien arrived at the Salyut-7 - Soyuz T-5 orbital complex. From August 20 to 27, 1982, cosmonauts L. Popov, A. Serebrov and the world's second female cosmonaut-researcher S. Savitskaya worked at the station. The materials received during the 211-day flight are being processed and are already being widely used in various areas of the national economy of our country.
In addition to the study of the Earth, an important area of Soviet cosmonautics was the study of the terrestrial planets and other celestial bodies in the Galaxy. On September 14, 1959, the Soviet automatic station "Luna-2" for the first time reached the surface of the Moon, in the same year, the far side of the Moon was first photographed from the station "Luna-3". The surface of the Moon was subsequently photographed many times by our stations. The soil of the Moon was delivered to the Earth (stations "Luna-16, 20, 24"), its chemical composition was determined.
Automatic interplanetary stations (AMS) explored Venus and Mars.
7 AMS of the "Mars" series were launched to the planet Mars. On December 2, 1971, the first soft landing on the surface of Mars in the history of cosmonautics was carried out (the Mars-3 descent vehicle). The equipment installed at the Mars stations transmitted to Earth information about the temperature and pressure in the atmosphere, about its structure and chemical composition. TV pictures of the planet's surface were obtained.
16 spacecraft of the "Venus" series were launched to the planet Venus. In 1967, for the first time in the history of cosmonautics, direct direct scientific measurements were made in the atmosphere of Venus (pressure, temperature, density, chemical composition) during the parachute descent of the Venera-4 descent vehicle, and the measurement results were transmitted to Earth. In 1970, the Venera-7 descent vehicle for the first time in the world made a soft landing and transmitted scientific information to the Earth, and in 1975, the Venera-9 and Venera-10 descent vehicles descended to the surface of the planet at intervals of 3 days, transmitted to Earth panoramic images of the surface of Venus (their landing sites were 2200 km apart from each other). The stations themselves became the first artificial satellites of Venus.
In accordance with the further research program, on October 30 and November 4, 1981, the Venera-13 and Venera-14 spacecraft were launched; they reached Venus in early March 1983. Two days before entering the atmosphere from the Venera-13 station, 13, the descent vehicle separated, and the station itself passed at a distance of 36,000 km from the surface of the planet. The descent vehicle made a soft landing, during the descent experiments were carried out to study the atmosphere of Venus. The drilling dredge-taking device installed on the device within 2 min. deep into the soil of the planet's surface, its analysis was carried out and the data transmitted to Earth. Telephotometers transmitted to Earth a panoramic image of the planet (the survey was carried out through color filters), a color image of the planet's surface was obtained. The descent vehicle of the Venera-14 station made a soft landing about 1000 km from the previous one. With the help of the installed equipment, a soil sample was also taken and an image of the planet was transmitted. The Venera-13 and Venera-14 stations continue their flight in a heliocentric orbit.
The Soviet-American Soyuz-Apollo flight entered the history of cosmonautics. In July 1975, Soviet cosmonauts A. Leonov and V. Kubasov and American astronauts T. Stafford, V. Brand and D. Slayton carried out the first joint flight of the Soviet and American Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft in the history of astronautics.
Soviet-French scientific cooperation has been successfully developing (for more than 15 years) - joint experiments are being carried out, scientific equipment and a program of experiments are being developed jointly by Soviet and French specialists. In 1972, one Soviet launch vehicle launched the Molniya-1 communications satellite and the French MAC satellite into orbit, and in 1975, the Molniya-1 satellite and the MAS-2 satellite. Currently, this cooperation is successfully continuing.
Two Indian artificial earth satellites were launched from the territory of the USSR.
From a small and relatively simple first satellite to modern satellites of the Earth, the most complex automatic interplanetary stations, manned spacecraft and orbital stations - such is the path of cosmonautics in twenty-five years.
Now space research is at a new stage. The 26th Congress of the CPSU put forward the important task of further knowledge and practical exploration of outer space.
In the second half of the XX century. humanity stepped on the threshold of the universe - went out into outer space. The road to space was opened by our Motherland. The first artificial satellite of the Earth, which opened the space age, was launched by the former Soviet Union, the first cosmonaut in the world is a citizen of the former USSR.
Cosmonautics is a huge catalyst for modern science and technology, which has become one of the main levers of the modern world process in an unprecedentedly short period of time. It stimulates the development of electronics, mechanical engineering, materials science, computer technology, energy and many other areas of the national economy.
In scientific terms, humanity seeks to find in space the answer to such fundamental questions as the structure and evolution of the Universe, the formation of the solar system, the origin and development of life. From hypotheses about the nature of the planets and the structure of the cosmos, people moved on to a comprehensive and direct study of celestial bodies and interplanetary space with the help of rocket and space technology.
In space exploration, mankind will have to study various areas of outer space: the Moon, other planets and interplanetary space.
Photo active tours, holidays in the mountains
The current level of space technology and the forecast of its development show that the main goal of scientific research using space means, apparently, in the near future will be our solar system. The main tasks will be the study of solar-terrestrial relations and the Earth-Moon space, as well as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets, astronomical research, medical and biological research in order to assess the impact of flight duration on the human body and its performance.
In principle, the development of space technology should outstrip the "Demand", associated with the solution of urgent national economic problems. The main tasks here are launch vehicles, propulsion systems, spacecraft, as well as supporting means (command-measuring and launch complexes, equipment, etc.), ensuring progress in related branches of technology, directly or indirectly related to the development of astronautics.
Before flying into the world space, it was necessary to understand and put into practice the principle of jet propulsion, learn how to make rockets, create a theory of interplanetary communications, etc. Rocketry is far from a new concept. To create powerful modern launch vehicles, man went through millennia of dreams, fantasies, mistakes, searches in various fields of science and technology, accumulation of experience and knowledge.
The principle of operation of a rocket lies in its movement under the action of the recoil force, the reaction of the flow of particles thrown from the rocket. In a rocket. those. in an apparatus equipped with a rocket engine, the exhaust gases are formed due to the reaction of the oxidizer and fuel stored in the rocket itself. This circumstance makes the operation of the rocket engine independent of the presence or absence of a gaseous medium. Thus, the rocket is an amazing structure that can move in airless space, i.e. not a reference, outer space.
A special place among Russian projects for the application of the jet principle of flight is occupied by the project of N. I. Kibalchich, a famous Russian revolutionary who, despite his short life (1853-1881), left a deep mark on the history of science and technology. Having extensive and profound knowledge of mathematics, physics, and especially chemistry, Kibalchich made home-made shells and mines for the People's Will. The "aeronautical device project" was the result of Kibalchich's long research work on explosives. He, in essence, for the first time proposed not a rocket engine adapted to any existing aircraft, as other inventors did, but a completely new (rocket-dynamic) apparatus, a prototype of modern manned spacecraft, in which the thrust of rocket engines serves to directly create a lift the force that keeps the craft in flight. Kibalchich's aircraft was supposed to function on the principle of a rocket!
But since Kibalchich was imprisoned for the attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II, then the project of his aircraft was discovered only in 1917 in the archive of the police department.
So, by the end of the 19th century, the idea of using jet instruments for flights gained large scale in Russia. And the first who decided to continue research was our great compatriot Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). He became interested in the jet principle of motion very early. Already in 1883 he gave a description of a ship with a jet engine. Already in 1903, Tsiolkovsky, for the first time in the world, made it possible to design a scheme for a liquid rocket. Tsiolkovsky's ideas were universally recognized as early as the 1920s. And the brilliant successor of his work, S.P. Korolev, a month before the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, said that the ideas and works of Konstantin Eduardovich would attract more and more attention as rocket technology developed, which he turned out to be absolutely right!
The beginning of the space age
And so, 40 years after the design of the aircraft created by Kibalchich was found, on October 4, 1957, the former USSR launched the world's first artificial Earth satellite. The first Soviet satellite made it possible for the first time to measure the density of the upper atmosphere, obtain data on the propagation of radio signals in the ionosphere, work out the issues of launching into orbit, thermal conditions, etc. The satellite was an aluminum sphere with a diameter of 58 cm and a mass of 83.6 kg with four whip antennas 2 long, 4-2.9 m. The equipment and power supplies were placed in the sealed housing of the satellite. The initial parameters of the orbit were: perigee height 228 km, apogee height 947 km, inclination 65.1 deg. On November 3, the Soviet Union announced the launch of the second Soviet satellite into orbit. In a separate pressurized cabin were the dog Laika and a telemetric system for recording her behavior in weightlessness. The satellite was also equipped with scientific instruments for studying solar radiation and cosmic rays.
On December 6, 1957, an attempt was made in the USA to launch the Avangard-1 satellite using a launch vehicle developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. .
On January 31, 1958, the Explorer 1 satellite, the American response to the launch of Soviet satellites, was launched into orbit. In terms of size and weight, he was not a candidate for champions. Being less than 1 m long and only ~15.2 cm in diameter, it had a mass of only 4.8 kg.
However, its payload was attached to the fourth, last stage of the Juno-1 launch vehicle. The satellite, together with the rocket in orbit, had a length of 205 cm and a mass of 14 kg. It was equipped with outdoor and indoor temperature sensors, erosion and impact sensors for determining micrometeorite flows, and a Geiger-Muller counter for recording penetrating cosmic rays.
An important scientific result of the satellite flight was the discovery of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth. The Geiger-Muller counter stopped counting when the apparatus was at apogee at an altitude of 2530 km, the height of the perigee was 360 km.
On February 5, 1958, a second attempt was made in the United States to launch the Avangard-1 satellite, but it also ended in an accident, like the first attempt. Finally, on March 17, the satellite was launched into orbit. Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to launch Avangard-1 into orbit, only three of them were successful.
Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to launch the Avangard
Both satellites contributed a lot to space science and technology (solar batteries, new data on the density of the upper atmosphere, accurate mapping of islands in the Pacific Ocean, etc.) On August 17, 1958, the first attempt was made in the USA to send from Cape Canaveral to the vicinity Moon probe with scientific equipment. She was unsuccessful. The rocket rose and flew only 16 km. The first stage of the rocket exploded at 77 from the flight. On October 11, 1958, a second attempt was made to launch the Pioneer-1 lunar probe, which also turned out to be unsuccessful. The next several launches also turned out to be unsuccessful, only on March 3, 1959, Pioneer-4, weighing 6.1 kg, partially completed the task: it flew past the Moon at a distance of 60,000 km (instead of the planned 24,000 km).
As well as when launching an Earth satellite, the priority in launching the first probe belongs to the USSR; on January 2, 1959, the first man-made object was launched, which was launched on a trajectory passing close enough to the Moon, into the orbit of the Sun satellite. Thus, "Luna-1" for the first time reached the second cosmic velocity. "Luna-1" had a mass of 361.3 kg and flew past the Moon at a distance of 5500 km. At a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a cloud of sodium vapor was released from a rocket stage docked to Luna 1, forming an artificial comet. Solar radiation caused a bright glow of sodium vapor and optical systems on Earth photographed the cloud against the background of the constellation Aquarius.
Luna-2, launched on September 12, 1959, made the world's first flight to another celestial body. Instruments were placed in the 390.2-kilogram sphere, which showed that the Moon does not have a magnetic field and a radiation belt.
Automatic interplanetary station (AMS) "Luna-3" was launched on October 4, 1959. The weight of the station was 435 kg. The main purpose of the launch was to fly around the Moon and photograph its opposite side, invisible from the Earth. Photographing was carried out on October 7 for 40 minutes from an altitude of 6200 km above the Moon.
man in space
April 12, 1961 at 9:07 Moscow time, a few tens of kilometers north of the village of Tyuratam in Kazakhstan at the Soviet Baikonur cosmodrome, an intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was launched, in the nose compartment of which the Vostok manned spacecraft with Air Force Major Yuriy was located Alekseevich Gagarin on board. The launch was successful. The spacecraft was launched into orbit with an inclination of 65 degrees, a perigee altitude of 181 km and an apogee altitude of 327 km, and completed one revolution around the Earth in 89 minutes. On the 108th mine after launch, he returned to Earth, landing near the village of Smelovka, Saratov Region. Thus, 4 years after the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, the Soviet Union for the first time in the world carried out a manned flight into outer space.
The spacecraft consisted of two compartments. The descent vehicle, which was also the cosmonaut's cabin, was a sphere 2.3 m in diameter, covered with an ablative material for thermal protection during atmospheric entry. The spacecraft was controlled automatically, as well as by the astronaut. In flight, it was continuously supported with the Earth. The ship's atmosphere is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen at a pressure of 1 atm. (760 mm Hg). "Vostok-1" had a mass of 4730 kg, and with the last stage of the launch vehicle 6170 kg. The Vostok spacecraft was launched into space 5 times, after which it was declared safe for human flight.
Four weeks after Gagarin's flight on May 5, 1961, Captain 3rd Rank Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut.
Although it did not reach low Earth orbit, it rose above the Earth to an altitude of about 186 km. Shepard, launched from Cape Canaveral in the Mercury-3 spacecraft using a modified Redstone ballistic missile, spent 15 minutes 22 seconds in flight before landing in the Atlantic Ocean. He proved that a person in zero gravity can manually control a spacecraft. Spacecraft "Mercury" was significantly different from the spacecraft "Vostok".
It consisted of only one module - a manned capsule in the shape of a truncated cone with a length of 2.9 m and a base diameter of 1.89 m. Its pressurized nickel alloy shell had titanium skin to protect it from heating during atmospheric entry. The atmosphere inside the "Mercury" consisted of pure oxygen at a pressure of 0.36 atm.
On February 20, 1962, the USA reached Earth orbit. The Mercury 6 was launched from Cape Canaveral, piloted by Navy Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn. Glenn stayed in orbit for only 4 hours and 55 minutes, completing 3 orbits before successfully landing. The purpose of Glenn's flight was to determine the possibility of human work in the spacecraft "Mercury". Mercury was last launched into space on May 15, 1963.
On March 18, 1965, the Voskhod spacecraft was launched into orbit with two cosmonauts on board - the commander of the ship, Colonel Pavel Ivarovich Belyaev, and the co-pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. Immediately after entering orbit, the crew purged themselves of nitrogen by inhaling pure oxygen. Then the airlock compartment was deployed: Leonov entered the airlock compartment, closed the hatch cover of the spacecraft and for the first time in the world made an exit into outer space. The cosmonaut with an autonomous life support system was outside the spacecraft cabin for 20 minutes, sometimes moving away from the spacecraft at a distance of up to 5 m. During the exit, he was connected to the spacecraft only by telephone and telemetry cables. Thus, the possibility of the astronaut's stay and work outside the spacecraft was practically confirmed.
On June 3, Gemeni-4 was launched with captains James McDivitt and Edward White. During this flight, which lasted 97 hours and 56 minutes, White left the spacecraft and spent 21 minutes outside the cockpit, testing the possibility of maneuvering in space with a compressed gas hand-held jet gun.
Unfortunately, space exploration has not been without casualties. On January 27, 1967, the crew preparing to make the first manned flight under the Apollo program died during a fire inside the spacecraft, having burned out in 15 seconds in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee became the first American astronauts to die in spacecraft. On April 23, a new Soyuz-1 spacecraft was launched from Baikonur, piloted by Colonel Vladimir Komarov. The launch was successful.
On orbit 18, 26 hours and 45 minutes after the launch, Komarov began the orientation for entry into the atmosphere. All operations went well, but after entering the atmosphere and braking, the parachute system failed. The cosmonaut died instantly at the moment the Soyuz hit the Earth at a speed of 644 km / h. In the future, the Cosmos claimed more than one human life, but these victims were the first.
It should be noted that in terms of natural science and production, the world is facing a number of global problems, the solution of which requires the combined efforts of all peoples. These are the problems of raw materials, energy, control over the state of the environment and the conservation of the biosphere, and others. A huge role in their cardinal solution will be played by space research - one of the most important areas of the scientific and technological revolution. Cosmonautics vividly demonstrates to the whole world the fruitfulness of peaceful creative work, the benefits of combining the efforts of different countries in solving scientific and national economic problems.
What problems do astronautics and astronauts face? Let's start with life support. What is life support? Life support in space flight is the creation and maintenance during the entire flight in the living and working compartments of the K.K. such conditions that would provide the crew with sufficient performance to complete the task, and the minimum likelihood of pathological changes in the human body. How to do it? It is necessary to significantly reduce the degree of impact on a person of adverse external factors of space flight - vacuum, meteoric bodies, penetrating radiation, weightlessness, overloads; supply the crew with substances and energy without which normal human life is not possible - food, water, oxygen and net; remove waste products of the body and harmful substances released during the operation of spacecraft systems and equipment; to provide human needs for movement, rest, external information and normal working conditions; organize medical control over the health of the crew and maintain it at the required level. Food and water are delivered into space in appropriate packaging, and oxygen is in a chemically bound form. If you do not restore the products of vital activity, then for a crew of three people for one year you will need 11 tons of the above products, which, you see, is a considerable weight, volume, and how will all this be stored during the year ?!
In the near future, regeneration systems will make it possible to almost completely reproduce oxygen and water on board the station. It has long been used water after washing and shower, purified in the regeneration system. Exhaled moisture is condensed in the refrigeration and drying unit and then regenerated. Breathing oxygen is extracted from purified water by electrolysis, and hydrogen gas, reacting with carbon dioxide coming from the concentrator, forms water that feeds the electrolyzer. The use of such a system makes it possible to reduce the mass of stored substances in the considered example from 11 to 2 tons. Recently, it has been practiced to grow various types of plants directly on board the ship, which makes it possible to reduce the supply of food that needs to be taken into space, Tsiolkovsky mentioned this in his writings.
space science
Space exploration helps a lot in the development of sciences:
On December 18, 1980, the phenomenon of a runoff of particles from the Earth's radiation belts under negative magnetic anomalies was established.
Experiments carried out on the first satellites showed that near-Earth space outside the atmosphere is not "empty" at all. It is filled with plasma, permeated with flows of energy particles. In 1958, Earth's radiation belts were discovered in near space - giant magnetic traps filled with charged particles - high-energy protons and electrons.
The highest intensity of radiation in the belts is observed at altitudes of several thousand km. Theoretical estimates showed that below 500 km. There should be no increased radiation. Therefore, the discovery during the flights of the first K.K. areas of intense radiation at altitudes up to 200-300 km. It turned out that this is due to the anomalous zones of the Earth's magnetic field.
The study of the natural resources of the Earth by space methods has spread, which in many respects has contributed to the development of the national economy.
The first problem that confronted space researchers in 1980 was a complex of scientific research, including most of the most important areas of space natural science. Their goal was to develop methods for thematic interpretation of multi-zone video information and their use in solving problems of the Earth sciences and economic sectors. These tasks include: the study of global and local structures of the earth's crust to understand the history of its development.
The second problem is one of the fundamental physical and technical problems of remote sensing and aims to create catalogs of the radiation characteristics of terrestrial objects and models of their transformation, which will make it possible to analyze the state of natural formations at the time of shooting and predict them for dynamics.
A distinctive feature of the third problem is the orientation towards radiation of the radiation characteristics of large regions up to the planet as a whole, using data on the parameters and anomalies of the Earth's gravitational and geomagnetic fields.
Exploring the Earth from space
Man first appreciated the role of satellites in monitoring the state of agricultural land, forests and other natural resources of the Earth only a few years after the onset of the space age. The beginning was laid in 1960, when with the help of meteorological satellites "Tiros" map-like outlines of the globe were obtained, lying under the clouds. These first black-and-white TV images gave very little insight into human activity, and yet it was a first step. Soon new technical means were developed that made it possible to improve the quality of observations. Information was extracted from multispectral images in the visible and infrared (IR) regions of the spectrum. The first satellites designed to take full advantage of these capabilities were the Landsat. For example, the Landsat-D satellite, the fourth in a series, observed the Earth from a height of more than 640 km using advanced sensitive instruments, which allowed consumers to receive much more detailed and timely information. One of the first areas of application of images of the earth's surface was cartography. In the pre-satellite era, maps of many areas, even in the developed regions of the world, were inaccurate. The Landsat images have corrected and updated some of the existing maps of the United States. In the USSR, images obtained from the Salyut station turned out to be indispensable for reconciling the BAM railway.
In the mid-1970s, NASA and the US Department of Agriculture decided to demonstrate the capabilities of the satellite system in forecasting the most important agricultural crop, wheat. Satellite observations, which turned out to be extremely accurate, were later extended to other agricultural crops. Approximately at the same time, in the USSR, observations of agricultural crops were carried out from satellites of the Cosmos, Meteor, and Monsoon series and the Salyut orbital stations.
The use of satellite information has revealed its undeniable advantages in assessing the volume of timber in the vast territories of any country. It became possible to manage the process of deforestation and, if necessary, to give recommendations on changing the contours of the deforestation area from the point of view of the best preservation of the forest. Thanks to satellite images, it has also become possible to quickly assess the boundaries of forest fires, especially the “crown-shaped” ones, characteristic of the western regions of North America, as well as the regions of Primorye and southern regions of Eastern Siberia in Russia.
Of great importance for humanity as a whole is the ability to observe almost continuously the expanses of the World Ocean, this "forge" of weather. It is above the depths of ocean water that monstrous forces are born of hurricanes and typhoons, bringing numerous victims and destruction to the inhabitants of the coast. Early warning to the public is often critical to saving the lives of tens of thousands of people. Determining the stocks of fish and other seafood is also of great practical importance. Ocean currents often curve, change course and size. For example, El Nino, a warm current in a southerly direction off the coast of Ecuador in some years can spread along the coast of Peru up to 12 degrees. S . When this happens, plankton and fish die in huge numbers, causing irreparable damage to the fisheries of many countries, including Russia. Large concentrations of unicellular marine organisms increase the mortality of fish, possibly due to the toxins they contain. Satellite observation helps to identify the “whims” of such currents and provide useful information to those who need it. According to some estimates by Russian and American scientists, the fuel savings, combined with the "extra catch" due to the use of information from satellites obtained in the infrared range, yield an annual profit of $ 2.44 million. The use of satellites for survey purposes has facilitated the task of plotting the course of ships . Also, satellites detect icebergs and glaciers dangerous for ships. Accurate knowledge of snow reserves in the mountains and the volume of glaciers is an important task of scientific research, because as the development of arid territories, the need for water increases dramatically.
The help of astronauts in the creation of the largest cartographic work - the Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources of the World is invaluable.
Also, with the help of satellites, oil pollution, air pollution, minerals are found.
space science
Within a short period of time since the beginning of the space age, man not only sent robotic space stations to other planets and set foot on the surface of the moon, but also revolutionized the science of space, which has not been equaled in the entire history of mankind. Along with the great technological advances brought about by the development of astronautics, new knowledge about the planet Earth and neighboring worlds was obtained. One of the first important discoveries, made not by the traditional visual, but by another method of observation, was the establishment of the fact of a sharp increase with height, starting from a certain threshold height, in the intensity of cosmic rays previously considered isotropic. This discovery belongs to the Austrian WF Hess, who in 1946 launched a gas balloon with equipment to great heights.
In 1952 and 1953 Dr. James Van Allen conducted research on low-energy cosmic rays when launching small rockets to a height of 19-24 km and high-altitude balloons in the region of the north magnetic pole of the Earth. After analyzing the results of the experiments, Van Allen proposed placing on board the first American artificial earth satellites, fairly simple in design, cosmic ray detectors.
On January 31, 1958, with the help of the Explorer-1 satellite launched into orbit by the United States, a sharp decrease in the intensity of cosmic radiation was detected at altitudes above 950 km. At the end of 1958, the Pioneer-3 AMS, which covered a distance of more than 100,000 km in a day of flight, registered using the sensors on board the second, located above the first, the Earth's radiation belt, which also encircles the entire globe.
In August and September 1958, at an altitude of more than 320 km, three atomic explosions were carried out, each with a power of 1.5 kW. The purpose of the tests, codenamed Argus, was to investigate the possibility of radio and radar communications being lost during such tests. The study of the Sun is the most important scientific problem, the solution of which is devoted to many launches of the first satellites and AMS.
The American "Pioneer-4" - "Pioneer-9" (1959-1968) from near-solar orbits transmitted by radio to Earth the most important information about the structure of the Sun. At the same time, more than twenty satellites of the Interkosmos series were launched to study the Sun and near-solar space.
Black holes
Black holes were first discovered in the 1960s. It turned out that if our eyes could only see X-rays, then the starry sky above us would look very different. True, the X-rays emitted by the Sun were discovered even before the birth of astronautics, but they did not even suspect about other sources in the starry sky. They stumbled upon them by accident.
In 1962, the Americans, having decided to check whether X-rays were coming from the surface of the Moon, launched a rocket equipped with special equipment. It was then that, processing the results of observations, we were convinced that the instruments had noted a powerful source of X-ray radiation. It was located in the constellation Scorpio. And already in the 70s, the first 2 satellites, designed to search for research on X-ray sources in the universe, went into orbit - the American Uhuru and the Soviet Kosmos-428.
By this time, things were starting to become clear. Objects emitting X-rays have been linked to barely visible stars with unusual properties. These were compact clumps of plasma of negligible, of course by cosmic standards, sizes and masses, heated to several tens of millions of degrees. With a very modest appearance, these objects possessed a colossal power of X-ray radiation, several thousand times greater than the full compatibility of the Sun.
These are tiny, with a diameter of about 10 km. , the remains of completely burned out stars, compressed to a monstrous density, should have somehow declared themselves. Therefore, neutron stars were so readily "recognized" in X-ray sources. And it all seemed to fit. But the calculations refuted the expectations: the newly formed neutron stars should immediately cool down and stop emitting, and these were X-rays.
With the help of launched satellites, the researchers found strictly periodic changes in the radiation fluxes of some of them. The period of these variations was also determined - usually it did not exceed several days. Only two stars rotating around themselves could behave in this way, one of which periodically eclipsed the other. This has been proven by observing through telescopes.
Where do X-ray sources draw their colossal radiation energy from? The main condition for the transformation of a normal star into a neutron one is the complete attenuation of the nuclear reaction in it. Therefore, nuclear energy is excluded. Then, perhaps, this is the kinetic energy of a rapidly rotating massive body? Indeed, it is large for neutron stars. But it only lasts for a short time.
Most neutron stars exist not alone, but in pairs with a huge star. In their interaction, theorists believe, the source of the mighty power of cosmic X-rays is hidden. It forms a disk of gas around the neutron star. At the magnetic poles of the neutron ball, the matter of the disk falls onto its surface, and the energy acquired by the gas is converted into X-rays.
Cosmos-428 also presented its own surprise. His equipment registered a new, completely unknown phenomenon - X-ray flashes. In one day, the satellite detected 20 bursts, each of which lasted no more than 1 second. , and the radiation power increased tenfold in this case. Scientists called the sources of X-ray flashes BARSTERS. They are also associated with binary systems. The most powerful flares are only a few times inferior to the total radiation of hundreds of billions of stars located in our Galaxy in terms of the energy emitted.
Theorists have proven that the "black holes" that make up binary star systems can signal themselves with X-rays. And the cause of occurrence is the same - accretion of gas. However, the mechanism in this case is somewhat different. The internal parts of the gaseous disk settling into the "hole" must heat up and therefore become sources of X-rays. Only those luminaries whose mass does not exceed 2-3 solar ones end their “life” with the transition to a neutron star. Larger stars suffer the fate of a "black hole".
X-ray astronomy has told us about the last, perhaps the most turbulent, stage in the development of stars. Thanks to her, we learned about the most powerful cosmic explosions, about gas with a temperature of tens and hundreds of millions of degrees, about the possibility of a completely unusual superdense state of matter in "black holes".
What else gives space for us? Television (TV) programs have not mentioned for a long time that the transmission is via satellite. This is further evidence of the tremendous success in the industrialization of space, which has become an integral part of our lives. Communication satellites literally entangle the world with invisible threads. The idea of creating communication satellites was born shortly after the Second World War, when A. Clark in the October 1945 issue of the magazine "World of Radio" (Wireless World) presented his concept of a relay communication station located at an altitude of 35880 km above the Earth.
Clark's merit was that he determined the orbit in which the satellite is stationary relative to the Earth. Such an orbit is called a geostationary or Clarke orbit. When moving along a circular orbit with a height of 35880 km, one revolution is completed in 24 hours, i.e. during the Earth's daily rotation. A satellite moving in such an orbit will constantly be above a certain point on the Earth's surface.
The first communication satellite "Telstar-1" was nevertheless launched into low earth orbit with parameters of 950 x 5630 km, this happened on July 10, 1962. Almost a year later, the launch of the Telstar-2 satellite followed. The first telecast showed the American flag in New England with the Andover station in the background. This image was transmitted to the UK, France and the US station in pc. New Jersey 15 hours after satellite launch. Two weeks later, millions of Europeans and Americans watched the negotiations of people on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. They not only talked but also saw each other, communicating via satellite. Historians may consider this day as the birth date of space TV. The world's largest state-owned satellite communications system has been created in Russia. Its beginning was laid in April 1965. the launch of satellites of the Molniya series, which are launched into highly elongated elliptical orbits with an apogee over the Northern Hemisphere. Each series includes four pairs of satellites orbiting at an angular distance of 90 degrees from each other.
On the basis of the Molniya satellites, the first Orbita deep space communication system was built. In December 1975 The family of communications satellites was replenished with the Raduga satellite operating in geostationary orbit. Then came the Ekran satellite with a more powerful transmitter and simpler ground stations. After the first development of satellites, a new period in the development of satellite communications technology began, when satellites began to be launched into a geostationary orbit in which they move synchronously with the rotation of the Earth. This made it possible to establish round-the-clock communication between ground stations using new-generation satellites: the American "Sincom", "Early Bird" and "Intelsat" and the Russian ones - "Rainbow" and "Horizon".
A great future is associated with the deployment of antenna systems in geostationary orbit.
On June 17, 1991, the ERS-1 geodetic satellite was launched into orbit. The main mission of the satellites would be to observe the oceans and ice-covered parts of the land in order to provide climatologists, oceanographers and environmental organizations with data on these underexplored regions. The satellite was equipped with the most advanced microwave equipment, thanks to which it is ready for any weather: the "eyes" of its radar instruments penetrate fog and clouds and give a clear image of the Earth's surface, through water, through land - and through ice. ERS-1 was aimed at developing ice maps, which would later help to avoid many disasters associated with the collision of ships with icebergs, etc.
For all that, the development of shipping routes is, figuratively speaking, only the tip of the iceberg, if we only remember the interpretation of ERS data on the oceans and ice-covered expanses of the Earth. We are aware of the alarming predictions of a general warming of the Earth, which will lead to the melting of the polar caps and rising sea levels. All coastal zones will be flooded, millions of people will suffer.
But we do not know how correct these predictions are. Long-term observations of the polar regions with ERS-1 and the ERS-2 satellite that followed it in late autumn 1994 provide data from which to draw conclusions about these trends. They're building an "early warning" system for the melting ice.
Thanks to the images that the ERS-1 satellite transmitted to Earth, we know that the ocean floor with its mountains and valleys is, as it were, "imprinted" on the surface of the waters. So scientists can get an idea of whether the distance from the satellite to the sea surface (measured to within ten centimeters by satellite radar altimeters) is an indication of rising sea levels, or is it a “fingerprint” of a mountain on the bottom.
Although originally designed for ocean and ice observations, ERS-1 quickly proved its versatility on land as well. In agriculture and forestry, in fisheries, geology and cartography, specialists work with data provided by the satellite. Since the ERS-1 is still operational after three years of its mission, scientists have a chance to operate it with the ERS-2 for general missions as a tandem. And they are going to receive new information about the topography of the earth's surface and provide assistance, for example, in warning about possible earthquakes.
Against the backdrop of the many global environmental problems for which both ERS-1 and ERS-2 must provide fundamental information, shipping route planning appears to be a relatively minor outcome of this new generation of satellites. But it is one of those areas where the opportunities for commercial use of satellite data are being used particularly intensively. This helps in funding other important tasks. And this has an effect in the field of environmental protection that can hardly be overestimated: faster shipping lanes require less energy. Or consider oil tankers that ran aground in a storm or crashed and sank, losing their environmentally hazardous cargo. Reliable route planning helps to avoid such disasters.
Even before the beginning of the era of space exploration, people argued that scientists could not only change the Earth, but also learn to control the weather. Space development, seriously affected the development of the Earth.
Space development in the USSR associated with the names of M.K. Tikhonravov and S.P. Korolev. In 1945, a group of specialists from the RNII was created, which was engaged in the development of the project of the world's first manned rocket vehicle. It was planned to send two astronauts aboard to study the upper atmosphere.
Space is unique in that we did not know anything about it for a long time, before everything that people could not explain seemed to us something from the realm of fantasy. Today, we can see the planet from space or the processes taking place on the Sun thanks to the research of scientists. Forty-something years ago, the first artificial satellite of the Earth was launched, for the space age, this is not a time at all. However space development and history already contains more than one series of unique achievements and discoveries, the first of which were made by the Soviet Union, the USA and other countries.
Today there are thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth, they have already been on Mars, Venus and the Moon.
First man in space
One of the most important events that contains history of space development and which the whole world watched - the flight of the first man into space, carried out on April 12, 1961. A young Smolensk guy with incredible charisma, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, was lucky enough to go into the space of weightlessness. Since then, large space development prospects. Then a crew consisting of several people flew away, the first woman went into space, and the Mir orbital station was created. To create optimal conditions for flight and stay in space, it was necessary to solve many problems, which later served as an impetus for the development of celestial and theoretical mechanics.
Space development in Russia associated with the production of innovative computers, which served as the birth of a new discipline - the dynamics of space flight. Television broadcasting, space communications, navigation systems reached a new level and already in 1965 we saw the first photographs of the planet Mars, Saturn. Without satellite navigation systems today it is impossible to imagine the transport industry and the work of military equipment. This matter is very cognitive development of space Every school curriculum includes such a topic.
Today there are fascinating methodical materials " speech development space preparatory group”, allowing you to get basic information about the planets, stars, the Moon, the Sun. Children learn and show interest in questions about the universe. Older children are encouraged to master " speech development space middle group”, where the basic concepts are explained in a more scientific language.
Space exploration has taken medicine to a new level. It is necessary to study the reaction of the body to the state of weightlessness, its nervous system. To create the most comfortable life support conditions and to know what tasks can be entrusted to a person who has been in space for a long time. The decisive role is played by the use of space resources in the creation of the information space in Russia, the introduction of the Internet. High-quality exchange of information today is no less important than the exchange of weapons. This is how it is properly formed. development of ideas about space.
Manned cosmonautics pursues exclusively peaceful purposes: the competent use of the Earth's resources, the solution of problems associated with environmental monitoring of the ocean and land, the development of science.
