space station

2. Skylab-1973

USA

3. Mir-1986

Russia

large artificial satellite in which people can live for long periods

4. International Space Station16 countries

Space Shuttle

reusable

goes back & forth

between Earth

& space

main wayUS launchesastronauts &

equipment into space

The Space Shuttle• NASA has used space

shuttles to perform many important tasks including:

1. taking satellites into orbit

2. repairing damaged satellites

3. carrying astronauts and equipment to and from space stations

Space Shuttle’s payload

bay

transports satellites

Seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, who was our "teacher in space," perished minutes after the Challenger lifted off (Flight 51-L) at Kennedy Space Center, January 28, 1986.

Recalling Challenger

The Space Shuttle Columbia carrying a crew of seven is seen streaking across the Texas sky as it breaks into pieces, February 1, 2003. All seven astronauts aboard Columbia were killed after it broke up just 16 minutes from its scheduled landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The recovered docking collar from the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Searchers recover a section of the Space Shuttle Columbia's nose cone.

Searchers comb the East Texas woods to retrieve wreckage.

At the time, 17-year-old Stan Thornton of Western Australia, scooped a few pieces off the roof of his home, caught the first flight to San Francisco and collected a $10,000 prize from the San Francisco Examiner for the first piece delivered to its newsroom.

On the 11th of July 1979, the American space station Skylab plummeted to its destruction over the town of Esperance, Western Australia.

The Crash of Skylab

The last crew abandoned the satellite in 1974 when its batteries failed. Skylab was wandering out of orbit by 1978, because of extra atmospheric drag due to sunspot activity. Despite the efforts of NASA to revive Skylab, it turned into an impossible mission. They eventually had to give up after their Shuttle rescue mission became behind schedule, and in July 1979 the world watched Skylab fall to the Earth.

The experts were trying to predict its landing place, initially telling us it could crash in America! So, NASA averted that disaster by maneuvering Skylab into a tumbling position, delaying its final descent by half an orbit. But while NASA announced it had safely fallen into the Indian Ocean, residents of Esperance were watching the spaceship break up into hundreds of pieces and proceed to rain down on and around their town! Dozens of people saw this once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, and no one slept through the loud booms of landing space-junk. It was a miracle that no one was hurt!

In the following days people found numerous fragments of Skylab scattered around Esperance and the surrounding area. Some of these are now on display in the town's museum. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. State Department received a $400 fine for littering from the authorities in the town of Esperance!

MIR

• Russia’s Mir space station re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on a controlled trajectory on March 23, 2001, after having been in orbit for over 15 years.

16 countries are cooperating to build the ISS.

InternationalSpace Station

space probe

• spacecraft that carries scientific instruments that can collect data

• no human crew

• rover= small robot

Juno space probe at Jupiter

Mars Rover

Opportunity

remote sensing

• Real World: NASA and a Dinosaur Named Dakota