It was designed to avoid some of the perceived problems with FORTRAN for backward compatibility with historic Buran ( spacecraft ) ALGOL software.

First conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of " landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth " by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in a May 25, 1961 address to Congress.

Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module ( LM ) on the Moon on July 20, 1969 and walked on its surface while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command spacecraft, and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24.

It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit ; Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit.

While the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, the Apollo spacecraft was to be able to carry three astronauts on a circumlunar flight and eventually to a lunar landing.

The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that " I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby.

At this point during the pre-mission preparations, the Saturn V rocket's three stages were powered up and drinking water was pumped into the spacecraft.

By the time mission control issued the wake-up call to the crew for flight day two, the spacecraft was approximately away from the Earth, traveling at about.

As the Apollo 16 spacecraft was not due to arrive in lunar orbit until flight day four, flight days two and three were largely preparatory days, consisting of spacecraft maintenance and scientific research.

At the beginning of day three, the spacecraft was about away from the Earth.

The early part of day three was largely housekeeping, spacecraft maintenance and exchanging status reports with mission control in Houston, Texas.

The crew performed the Apollo light flash experiment, or ALFMED, to investigate " light flashes " that were seen by the astronauts when the spacecraft was dark, regardless of whether or not their eyes were open, on Apollo lunar flights.

At the end of the Apollo 16 crew's final full day in space, the spacecraft was approximately from Earth and closing at a rate of about.

When the wake-up call was issued to the Apollo 16 crew for their final day in space by capsule communicator Tony England, the spacecraft was about out from Earth, traveling just over.

The main mission objective was to verify performance of Spacelab systems, determine the interface capability of the orbiter, and measure the environment created by the spacecraft.

Two other satellites made observations at the time of the impact: the Ulysses spacecraft, primarily designed for solar observations, was pointed towards Jupiter from its location 2. 6 AU away, and the distant Voyager 2 probe, some 44 AU from Jupiter and on its way out of the Solar System following its encounter with Neptune in 1989, was programmed to look for radio emission in the 1 – 390 kHz range.

The Elektronika MK-52 calculator ( using the extended B3-34 command set, and featuring internal EEPROM memory for storing programs and external interface for EEPROM cards and other periphery ) was used in Soviet spacecraft program ( for Soyuz TM-7 flight ) as a backup of the board computer.

* 1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

Deep Space 1 was the first spacecraft to use Ion powered rocketry, in contrast to the traditional chemical powered rockets.

The next spacecraft to use Autonav was Deep Impact.

The next spacecraft to use NSTAR engines was the Dawn spacecraft, with three redundant units.

It was originally planned that the ports would connect to 7. 5 tonne modules derived from the Soyuz spacecraft.

The solar array design was derived primarily from the Small Spacecraft Technology Initiative ( SSTI ) spacecraft development guidelines.

This spacecraft was carried into orbit by the Voskhod rocket, also developed from the earlier Vostok rocket and ultimately derived from the R-7 ICBM.

In addition, Excalibur Almaz acquired four VA return capsule hulls ( derived from the TKS / VA spacecraft ) and plans to outfit and launch them as well: one is planned to be used in support of space tourism while the other three capsules are reserved for scientific and commercial payloads.

MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, with which crews would be launched on 40-day missions and return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft, derived from NASA's Gemini program.

This name is derived from the Russian Море Мечты, Mechta (" Dream ") being the original name for the Luna 1 spacecraft.

Mariner Mark II spacecraft were to utilize common design, hardware and software solutions, much of it derived from previous missions such as Voyager and Galileo as well as select new technologies, such as advanced gyroscopes, all with the aim of cutting costs.

It had a Functional Cargo Block derived from a TKS spacecraft to control its orbit and it could fire test targets to demonstrate the fire control system.

The research combines paleogeological record, analysis of comprehensive global datasets ( derived mainly from spacecraft observations ), with global models of atmospheric, land surface, and oceanic processes.

It was expected that after 2. 5 hours and 1. 7 revolutions in the initial orbit, the autonomous main propulsion unit ( MDU ), derived from the Fregat upper stage, would conduct its firing to insert the spacecraft into the elliptical orbit ( 250 km x 4, 150 – 4, 170 km ) with a period of about 2. 2 hours.

The Progress 7K-TG spacecraft was the first generation Progress, derived from the Soyuz 7K-T and intended for unmanned logistics missions to space stations in support of the Salyut programme.

This was made up of modules derived from the orbital module of the Shenzhou spacecraft.

It will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet ( Venus ).

Once on course towards the Moon, the crew put the spacecraft into a rotisserie " barbecue " mode in which the craft rotated along its long axis three times per hour to ensure even heat distribution about the spacecraft from the Sun.

To minimize the transfer of lunar dust from the LM cabin into the CSM, Young and Duke cleaned the cabin before opening the hatch separating the two spacecraft.

image: The Earth seen from Apollo 17. jpg | Apollo 17 photo of the Earth as the spacecraft headed for the Moon ( now known as " The Blue Marble photo ").

A rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine.

* The fictitious interplanetary spacecraft Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov from the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke is powered by a fictitious Sakharov drive.

Alpha Centauri is not actually a sequel to Civilization, despite beginning with the same event that ends Civilization and Civilization II: a manned spacecraft from Earth arrives in the Alpha Centauri star system.

Autonomous control will enable future spacecraft to operate at greater distances from Earth, and to carry out more sophisticated science-gathering activities in deep space.

On each of the last three of these missions, astronauts also performed deep-space EVAs on the return to Earth, to retrieve film canisters from the outside of the spacecraft.

As they had with the first satellite and first man in space, the Soviets again stunned the world on March 18, 1965 with the first EVA ( commonly referred to as a " space walk ") performed by Alexey Leonov from the Voskhod 2 spacecraft, for 12 minutes outside the spacecraft.

White found his tether useful for limiting his distance from the spacecraft, but difficult to use for moving around, contrary to Leonov's claim.

On January 16, 1969, the Soviet Union achieved the first EVA crew transfer from one spacecraft to another when Aleksei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov transferred from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4, which were docked together.

telemetry stations which can receive signals from spacecraft ( ESTRACK ).

* 1967 – Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.

In the 1960s, Pratt and Whitney licensed Bacon's U. S. patents for use in the U. S. space program to supply electricity and drinking water ( hydrogen and oxygen being readily available from the spacecraft tanks ).

Phenomena that in classical mechanics are ascribed to the action of the force of gravity ( such as free-fall, orbital motion, and spacecraft trajectories ), correspond to inertial motion within a curved geometry of spacetime in general relativity ; there is no gravitational force deflecting objects from their natural, straight paths.