History Of Nasa

The United States' civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research are overseen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, an autonomous agency of the US federal government. After NACA, it was established in 1958 to provide the United States space research endeavor with a clear civilian focus, with an emphasis on peaceful uses of space science.

From 1968 to 1972, it oversaw the Apollo Moon landing missions, Project Gemini, the Space Shuttle, the Skylab space station, and Project Mercury, among many others. At this time, the International Space Station is receiving assistance from NASA.

Space research and the interplanetary probe program were initiated by NASA in the 1960s. Launching probes to Mercury, Venus, and Mars in the 1960s, the Mariner program was its crown jewel.

Robotic interplanetary research was spearheaded by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which led to important findings about the inner planets. Notwithstanding these achievements, Congress was hesitant to provide funds for any interplanetary missions, and in order to redirect resources to the Apollo program, NASA Administrator James Webb halted all future interplanetary probes.

Soon after the Apollo program ended, NASA ramped up its space scientific initiatives and started sending probes to other planets. Venus was the first planet to be designated for investigation because of the similarities between it and Earth. After the American Mariner 2 spacecraft made their maiden visit,

It was noted that Venus was a scorching and uninhabitable planet. Magellan, which mapped the surface of Venus using radar in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Pioneer Venus project, which took place in the 1970s, were both follow-up missions. In subsequent expeditions, Venus was only a stop along the route to other Solar System locations.

Mars has always piqued NASA's interest due to the planet's possible habitability as a host for life. Before Mariner 6 and Mariner 7, NASA's spacecraft Mariner 5 was the first to pass Mars.

The first mission to Mars from an orbit was Mariner 9. The Viking program, which began in 1975 and ended in 1976, landed twice on Mars. It wasn't until 1996 that the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and Mars Pathfinder sent the first Mars rover, Sojourner, into orbit around the red planet.

The Sprit and Opportunity rovers touched down on the Red Planet in 2004, while the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter reached the planet in the early 2000s. After that came the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2005 and the Phoenix Mars lander in 2007.

After successfully landing on Mars in 2012, the Curiosity rover found the chemical components necessary for life to exist and that radiation levels were comparable to those on the International Space Station, significantly raising the prospect of human exploration.

The Martian upper atmosphere and space environment were examined by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission in 2013, while the Martian interior was researched by the Interior exploration utilizing Seismic Investigations Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) mission in 2018. Ingenuity, a helicopter, was the first spacecraft to dock with a planetary surface on the Perseverance rover in 2021.

In 2004, the MESSENGER probe was the first to employ a solar sail, and NASA also conducted missions to Mercury. Additionally, beginning in the 1960s, NASA sent probes out into the Solar System's outer regions. While Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter as the first spacecraft to visit the outer planets, Pioneer 11 gave the first up-close look at the planet.

Prior to their departure from the Solar System, both probes had never been seen before. In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft set off on a course to depart the Solar System, making flybys of the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus.

Launched from Space Shuttle STS-34, the Galileo probe made history by orbiting Jupiter before any other spacecraft had done so. It found evidence of Europa's subsurface seas and noted that the moon may contain ice or liquid water.Out of all the planets in our solar system that have the potential to support life, the Cassini-Huygens mission—a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency—was sent to Saturn's moon Titan.

The Huygens probe reached Titan's atmosphere, and Cassini found three additional Saturnian moons. Titan has liquid hydrocarbon lakes and Enceladus has subterranean seas that may be home to life, according to the mission's findings. The New Horizons mission, which finally took off in 2006, was the pioneering exploration of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

The number of space telescopes launched by NASA exceeds that of interplanetary missions.

They were the first orbiting telescopes launched by NASA, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, in the 1960s.Making observations in the UV, gamma, x-, and infrared spectrums. In order to study Earth's orbit and its interactions with the Sun, the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory was launched by NASA in the 1960s and 1970s. The Uhuru satellite, which mapped 85 percent of the sky and found several black holes, was the first x-ray telescope specifically designed for this purpose.

Some of NASA's most powerful telescopes are part of the Great Observatories program, which was launched in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Hubble Space Telescope, which could see galaxies 15 billion light-years distant, was launched in 1990 on STS-31 from the Discovery.A serious flaw in the telescope's mirror almost derailed the program if NASA hadn't used computer improvement to fix the flaw and sent the Space Shuttle on five maintenance missions to repair the broken parts. Launched from the Atlantis on STS-37 in 1991, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory found that most gamma-ray bursts happen outside of our galaxy and that the heart of the Milky Way may be a source of antimatter.

Launched from the Columbia on STS-93 in 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory studied dark matter, supernovae, quasars, and black holes. In particular, it shed light on the Milky Way's central Sagittarius A* black hole and how dark matter and ordinary matter separate after galactic collisions. Last but not least, in 2003, a Delta II rocket carried the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope into orbit. Observing Earth from its trailing orbit around the Sun, it found brown dwarf stars.

The results from other observatories, such the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Cosmic Background Explorer, corroborated the Big Bang theory.In 2021, the infrared observatory known as the James Webb Space Telescope was launched.

It was named after the NASA administrator who oversaw the Apollo program. Designed to study early galaxy formation, the James Webb Space Telescope follows in the footsteps of the famed Hubble Space Telescope.One such space telescope is the Kepler mission, which began operations in 2009 and aims to locate Earth-like planets that may be circling stars other than our own. Circling inside its star's habitable zone, Kepler-22b was the first exoplanet verified by the Keplar space observatory.

Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS), the first weather satellite, was launched in 1960 and was one of several spacecraft studied by NASA.On the second generation Nimbus weather satellite program and future TIROS, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the United States Weather Bureau worked together.

The agency also sent its experimental Applications Technology Satellites into geosynchronous orbit and collaborated with it on a number of weather satellites. Launched in 1972, Landsat was the first Earth observation satellite operated solely by NASA. Because of this, NOAA and NASA worked together to create the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite to learn about ozone depletion.