Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
On 18 December, the Ariane 5GS made its final flight, delivering the Helios-IIB satellite into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The last orbital launch of the year was conducted eleven days later, on 29 December, when a Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage launched the DirecTV-12 satellite.
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer ( WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and MIDEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program launched in December 2009. [2] [3] [4] WISE discovered thousands of minor planets and numerous star clusters.
On December 18, 2009, the SOFIA aircraft performed the first test flight in which the telescope door was fully opened. This phase lasted for two minutes of the 79-minute flight. SOFIA's telescope saw first light on May 26, 2010, returning images showing M82 's core and heat from Jupiter 's formation escaping through its cloud cover. [37]
Launched on June 18, 2009, in conjunction with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), as the vanguard of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, LRO was the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years. LRO and LCROSS were launched as part of the United States's Vision for Space Exploration program.
After a month-long investigation in December 2005 and testing in January 2006, new operating procedures were developed that would allow Landsat 5 to continue normal operations. [7] On December 18, 2009, the transmitter on Landsat 5 experienced technical difficulties. [8]
The Kepler space telescope is a defunct space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J. Borucki.
The Explorers program [1] is a NASA exploration program that provides flight opportunities for physics, geophysics, heliophysics, and astrophysics investigations from space. Launched in 1958, Explorer 1 was the first spacecraft of the United States to achieve orbit. Over 90 space missions have been launched since.
ISS expeditions. ← Expedition 21. Expedition 23 →. Expedition 22 was the twenty-second long duration crew flight to the International Space Station (ISS). This expedition began on 1 December 2009 when the Expedition 21 crew departed.
It became the first NASA spacecraft named after a living (at the time) person, honoring physicist Eugene Newman Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. A memory card containing the names of over 1.1 million people was mounted on a plaque and installed below the spacecraft's high-gain antenna on 18 May 2018.
In 2009, the probe discovered and confirmed four new satellites. Its primary mission ended in 2008, when the spacecraft completed 74 orbits around the planet. In 2010, the probe began its first extended mission, the Cassini Equinox Mission.