Nowadays, the space exploration of human beings has made great achievements that speed up our conquering process to other planets. Remarkably, the first decade of the twenty-first century ends with key discoveries and events in space exploration. The last year of the decade breaks down further diversification in exploration the universe. Major aerospace powers in the world viewed in the war of developing delivery means. The International Space Stations are built in many developed countries in the whole planet. The following demonstrations are ten major space exploration events in 2010.
The United States successfully launched its Space Shuttle to the International Space Station three times in 2010 in order to deliver needed equipments for building process. The station has lifetime until 2020 and accommodates for six long-term astronauts.
The Air Force’s X-37B unmanned spacecraft of United States has returned to Earth after seven months running in orbit. The Boeing-built design lights a hope of developing a new aircraft with both aeronautic and aerospace function.
The U.S. Space Exploration Technologies Corp, also known as SpaceX, sent Falcon 9 rocket carrying Dragon capsule to the distance of 300 km above the Earth. The Dragon capsule hopefully will fly cargo and astronauts to the space station.
A spacecraft for the U.S. Solar Dynamics Observatory was launched on February 2 which hopefully discovers some details of the Sun’s inner functioning mechanism.
Venus climate orbiter Akatsuki was launched into space on May 21 by Japan. It failed to go into the Venusian orbit on Dec. 7. Japan is trying to make this probe enter Venus when the satellite passes Venus six years later.
On October 1, China succeeded in sending the liter probe satellite Chang’e 2 to the moon. The second unmanned lunar probe is still traveling now and has taken some high-resolution of the lunar surface.
Hayabusa probe of Japan came home from space on June 13. It is believed that the space probe brings back particles from asteroid Itokawa.
China has sent five orbiters to the space serving for independent satellite navigation and positioning network, named Compass system or Beidou.
With huge transmission capacity, AEHF can provide faster simultaneous communications.
U.S. President Barack Obama sets a new space policy for the country. The policy includes sending human into an asteroid by 2025 and to orbit Mars by mid-2030s. The return-to-moon plan was abandoned.
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Important Events in Space Exploration
