From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spaceflight
is when an object (or
spacecraft
) made by man flies into
outer space
. A spaceflight can occur with or without
humans
on board.
The
Russian
Soyuz program
, the
American
Space Shuttle
and the
International Space Station
are examples of manned missions. (Manned means the spacecraft has humans on board.) On the other hand, examples of unmanned flights are
space probes
which fly into deeper space, and
satellites
which
travel around
and orbit the
Earth
or other
planets
. (Unmanned means the spacecraft does not have any people on board.) Space probes and satellites are both machines that work either by
radio control
from Earth or are fully automatic.
Spaceflight is used for
space exploration
such as manned missions to the Earth's
moon
or unmanned missions to other planets in the
solar system
. Spaceflight can also be used for tourism and satellite
telecommunications
. A spaceflight begins with a rocket launch, which provides enough energy to get out of Earth's atmosphere and to orbit the Earth. Once the rocket is in space, the activity of the rocket is watched and studied by
scientists
back on Earth. Some rockets may remain in space forever, some break apart when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere. Some spacecraft are made to land on other planets, and most manned spacecraft are made to land back on Earth, most of the time using a parachute to land safely.
On October 3, 1942, a German
V-2 missile
crossed the
Karman line
(100 km or 62 miles above the Earth) on October 3, 1942. This was the first spaceflight. The first man-made satellite to travel around Earth was the Russian
Sputnik 1
on October 4, 1957.
Some examples of manned spacecraft are
Soyuz
,
Starship
, Starliner, Gemini,
Apollo
,
Crew Dragon
, Mercury (It is both the name of a spacecraft and a planet), the
Space Shuttle
, and
Orion.
Unmanned spacecraft include
communications satellite
s,
space telescope
s,
space probe
s and
planet rovers
.