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These vehicles land on earth much like a plane does, but they usually do not use propellant during landing. Examples are: Space Shuttle orbiter - as part of the main stage; Buran spaceplane - acted as an orbital insertion stage, however Polyus could also be used as a second stage for the Energia launch vehicle. Venturestar - a project of NASA
Vostok 1 (Russian: Восток, East or Orient) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 April 1961, with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard, making him the first human to reach orbital velocity around the Earth and to complete a full orbit around the Earth.
The Apollo program had in its early planning instead of a lunar landing a crewed lunar orbital flight and an orbital laboratory station in orbit of Earth, at times called Project Olympus, as two different possible program goals, until the Kennedy administration sped ahead and made the Apollo program focus on what was originally planned to come ...
Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4) is a launch and landing site at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, U.S. It has two pads, both of which are used by SpaceX for Falcon 9, one for launch operations, and the other as Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) for SpaceX landings. The complex was previously used by Atlas and Titan rockets between 1963 and 2005.
The first space rendezvous was accomplished by Gemini 6A and Gemini 7 in 1965.. Records and firsts in spaceflight are broadly divided into crewed and uncrewed categories. Records involving animal spaceflight have also been noted in earlier experimental flights, typically to establish the feasibility of sending humans to outer space.
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. [1] [page needed] In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.
First spacecraft to photograph another spacecraft landing on another celestial body (Phoenix, on Mars). USA (NASA) Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter [49] 8 November 2008: First discovery of lunar water in the form of ice. [note 4] India Chandrayaan-1 [50] [51] 6 March 2009: First space telescope designated to search for Earth-like exoplanets. USA (NASA)
Vertical takeoff, horizontal landing (VTHL) is the mode of operation for all current and formerly operational orbital spaceplanes, such as the Boeing X-37, the NASA Space Shuttle, the 1988 Soviet Buran space shuttle, and the PRC CSSHQ/Shenlong. For launch vehicles an advantage of VTHL over HTHL is that the wing can be smaller, since it only has ...