Space Information Portal

Space Information Portal

 

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Unmanned Space Vehicles

 

Robot Probes:

We build machines, to boldly go where no man has gone before, and can not yet go.  We do not yet have the technology to allow a man to survive for a journey that will take years.  However, we do have the technology to build and deploy robotic scouts, to explore the farthest reaches of our solar system. 

Only one of these probes has ever left the solar system though (they think it has left anyways);  Voyager 1.  Although long past it's life expectency, the little robot faithfully continues it's mission. 

Voyager 1.  Source: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04495

This picture depicts the voyagers' paths as they leave the solar system.

The above picture can be found at

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/images/f23.gif

 

Orbiting Artificial Satellites:

The first vehicle to enter orbit about the Earth was the Sputnik-1, in 1957, which was constructed by Soviet engineers.  Today, there are many, many orbiting robots, that provide us with communications technology, as well as data about our planet, navigation, and (soon) broadband internet access anywhere in the world.

 

The International Space Station is one of the most recent additions to the hail of expensive debris that orbits our planet.  A picture below, which was found at

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/progress/html/iss003e8158.html