AVIATION

Space series

since June 2021 in the German Space Exhibition Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz in Saxony

Silver Snoopy

The Beagle has landed

The crew of Apollo 10 – which largely simulated the moon landing – traditionally chose the call letters for the space shuttle and the command module themselves. The team chooses names from the comic series Peanuts. The command unit was named Charlie Brown and the lunar module was named Snoopy. If the ferry had landed on the moon, it might have been called “The Beagle has landed”.

NASA continually presents the “Silver Snoopy Award” to deserving individuals and companies to honor their contribution to the success of a space mission. An award also went to Omega for the use of the Omega Speedmaster (nickname Moonwatch) on the wrists of astronauts during the Apollo 13 mission when it was said: “Houston, we have a problem”.

Snoopy is on board as a zero gravity indicator on NASA’s current moon landing mission “Artemis”.

Perseverance

NASA Mars mission 2020/21

“Mars 2020” is NASA’s fifth rover and first helicopter mission. An Atlas V launcher was used to send a space probe with the rover and a helicopter on its way to Mars. Your arrival on Mars is scheduled for February 18, 2021. The mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. The Mars rover is called Perseverance.

ISS

International Space Station

One of the most fascinating topics in space travel is the ISS (International Space Station). It flies only 400 kilometers above the earth and can be seen with the naked eye. It is currently the only permanently manned space station. Since it was set up in 1998, it has been operated and further developed by 16 countries and 5 space agencies in international cooperation.

Pioneering Spirit: Pioneer & amp; Voyager

space probes furthest from the earth

No man-made objects advanced further into space like the space probes Pioneer 10 and sister probes Voyager 1 and 2. The probes are now in interstellar space. The Voyager missions were actually only scheduled for 4 years, but they are still sending data. A “Voyager Golden Record” is attached to each probe, a gold record with messages to extraterrestrial life forms. Among others: Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Good.

The Eagle has landed

Apollo 11 - moon landing 1969

On July 16, 1969, the Saturn V rocket was launched into the sky from Launch Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center. Five days later, on July 21, the lunar module landed with Armstrong’s radio message: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” 500 million people watched the moon landing spellbound on TV.

The mission achieved John F. Kennedy’s 1961 goal of getting a person to the moon and back before the end of the decade.

Juri Gagarin

First person in space

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin (1934 – 1968) was the first person in space. He was a “Hero of the Soviet Union” and a colonel in the Soviet Air Force. The 1.57 m tall pilot was the first cosmonaut to complete his spectacular space flight with the Vostok 1 spacecraft, orbiting the earth once in 106 minutes.

In 1968, Gagarin had a fatal accident during a training flight with a MiG-15UTI. Gagarin’s urn is located in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

ESA

European Space Agency

The European Space Agency, or ESA for short, includes 22 European countries. The aim is to coordinate and operate joint space activities. The ESA was founded in 1975 to make Europe technologically and politically more independent from the spacefaring nations of the Soviet Union and the United States. It is based in Paris.

The Ariane 5 was in use from 1996 to 2023 and has now been replaced by the Ariane 6.

The Blue Planet

The Earth

Star map

from Albrecht Dürer

Star map from 1515 according to Albrecht Dürer. In 1515, Albrecht Dürer designed maps of the northern and southern starry sky. These were the first printed star maps.

Saturn

Ringed planet

Saturn is the sixth planet in the solar system as seen from the Sun and has an equatorial diameter of approximately 120,500 kilometers (9.5 times the diameter of Earth). Because of its striking ring system, which is visible even in small telescopes, it is often called the ring planet. It is the outermost planet that is clearly visible to the naked eye and was therefore known for thousands of years before the invention of the telescope. As a gas planet, Saturn has no solid surface. The planet is named after the Roman god of wealth and harvest, Saturn.

Sigmund Jähn

Erster Deutscher Raumfahrer

Sigmund Jähn (1937-2019) was a German fighter pilot, cosmonaut and major general in the NVA. In 1978, Jähn was the first German to fly into space in the Soviet space capsule Soyuz 31. Together with Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky, he flew to the Soviet space station Salyut 6. The flight lasted almost 8 days with 124 orbits of the Earth.

SpaceX – Elon Musk

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 and within a few years became a major provider of the International Space Station (ISS) with the Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX replaced Arianespace as the global leader in satellite launches.

With the Falcon Heavy, Space X has the most powerful launch vehicle available. The cost of satellite launches was reduced by a factor of 7.

SpaceX has been carrying out manned space flights to the ISS for NASA since 2020, and flights with private individuals have also been carried out since 2021.

Space Shuttle Program

1972 - 2011

The Space Shuttle System has been developed on behalf of NASA since the 1970s. the first mission started in 1981.

up to eight astronauts and almost 25 tons of payload could be carried. The shuttle also docked several times with the MIR and ISS space stations.

By reusing the parts of the system, flights into space should be significantly cheaper than with non-reusable launch vehicles. This expectation was not fulfilled due to high repair costs. The last flight took place in 2011.

The Columbia and the Challenger had accidents on their expedition.