A reminder that NASA isn’t the only space agency
I have seen many “Space achievements 2015” articles and posts leaving international accomplisments completely out, so here are some of them:
1. A new type of basaltic rock on the moon was found by Chinese robotic lander.
China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-3 landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013, becoming the first spacecraft to soft-land since the Soviet Union‘s Luna 24 in 1976.
2. On February 11, the European Space Agency, ESA, successfully launched on a suborbital trajectory and recovered an experimental wingless glider, IXV.
It became the first true “lifting body” vehicle, which reached a near-orbital speed and then returned back to Earth without any help from wings.
3. On December 9, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft succeeded entering orbit of Venus.
Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency’s Akatsuki is the first spacecraft to explore Venus since the ESA’s Venus Express reached the end of its mission in 2014.
4. ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft detected oxygen ‘leaking’ from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the first time these molecules have been seen around a comet.
Rosetta spacecraft, the first to drop a lander (named Philae) on a comet, entered orbit around 67P in 2014 and continues to orbit the body. On June 13, European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, received signals from the Philae lander after months of silence.
5. The Canadian Space Agency has provided NASA with a laser mapping system that will scan an asteroid that could potentially hit the Earth in about 200 years
6. The high-resolution stereo camera on ESA’s Mars Express captured this sweeping view from the planet’s south polar ice cap and across its cratered highlands and beyond.
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