Space Tech 2 Modern rockets and the ROSETTA mission1

Modern Rockets

The Delta Family The Delta II is a rocket which is part of the Delta family, serving since the 1960’s The Delta II began service in 1989 and is still used today. Like most modern rockets it is designed more for launching satellites than interplanetary probes. The Delta rockets are made by a the United Launch Alliance It only takes 20 minutes for them to fill the first 38,000L tank!

Notable payloads 2001 Mars Odyssey CONTOUR Dawn Deep Impact Deep Space 1 GLAST GRAIL Gravity Probe B Mars Climate Orbiter Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Global Surveyor Mars Pathfinder Mars Phoenix Mars Polar Lander MESSENGER NEAR Jason-2 Polar (satellite) ROSAT Spitzer Space Telescope (SIRTF) STEREO Swift THEMIS USA 193 (NROL-21) WIND WISE Kepler STSS-ATRR Genesis (spacecraft) The Delta II Rocket has become famous for carrying the following list of satellites, probes and rovers. NASA particularly like this rocket for it’s Mars missions. 55 satellites were launched on Delta rockets between 1997 and 1998!!

The Long March The Chinese favourite rocket of choice is known as the Long March rocket. As far as we know they have been mainly used to launch lunar orbiters. The current version is the Long March 4 but it is said that they are developing 3 more.

The Soyuz Rocket According to the European Space Agency (ESA) the Soyuz family of rockets are the most frequently used launch vehicle today. The Soyuz rockets have a history that dates back to the cold war when they were first launched in 1966 by the Soviet Union. The word “Soyuz” is actually Russian for “Union”! If launched from the equator these rockets can send payloads of up to 4.7 tonnes into orbit.

Soyuz Payloads The Soyuz rockets have carried everything from manned spacecraft and military satellites to orbiters and even mars landers! (See Beagle 2, it launched OK but later failed) Between 2008 and 2014 the Soyuz rockets have carried 72 Cosmonauts to the ISS!

The Vega and Ariane Rockets

The Vega The ESA use Vega rockets to launch small payloads (less than 2.5 tonnes) for scientific and Earth observation missions. The Vega is cheap and cheerful with an estimated launch cost of €32million. This is mostly due to the low orbits and small payload requiring much less fuel. Notice how it has no need for any solid rocket boosters? They’re actually considering using the rocket itself as a booster to stick onto the proposed Ariane 6!

The Ariane 5 The Ariane 5 is responsible for 77 launches with only 2 failures. One of these failures that occurred in 2002 caused the ROSETTA mission to be delayed which meant picking a new target. The Ariane 5 has also launched the XMM-Newton satellite. The Ariane 5 and its modifications launch heavy payloads of from between 5 and 20 metric tons (depending on the orbit).

Ariane – 5 Launch

Apollo 8 – Saturn V

Do Rockets fly straight up?

The ROSETTA mission to “67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko”

Rosetta

Philae

A 12 year journey tta_s_twelve-year_journey_in_space tta_s_twelve-year_journey_in_space

Where is Philae? tta_s_closest_encounter tta_s_closest_encounter

So what did we learn?

The main thing we learned is that the water on 67P/C-G is different to the water on earth. This disproves a huge theory that Earth got its water from comets like this. So how did Earth get it’s oceans? Who knows!

Group Activity: Newton’s Laws