History

The spacecraft design is riddled with space heritage: (1) heritage related to the process of carrying out science in space; (2) heritage related to manned space flight/exploration; and (3) human cultural heritage that remains off the surface of ‘planet Earth’ [ICOMOS-IAU Thematic Study no. 1 (2010)]. In this course of designing satellites for space, the first connotation is most relevant to us: “What has flown successfully before?” As spacecraft engineers, a brief history of how aerospace became a field of study, a symbol of military dominance, and the commercial sector will help you understand how we got here and where we are going. This sector now retains immense inertia from its history, making future trends rather predictable.

We, as a human species, have long dreamed of going to the stars. Our longing to explore space is inextricably linked to astronomical observations, documented famously by Ptolemy, Aristotle, Copernicus, and Galileo. Historical female astronomers often worked under the name of their male family members or mentors with little public recognition include Theano of Crotone, Hypatia of Alexandria Egypt, nuns Hildegard of Bingen and abbess Herrad de Landsberg, Sophia Brahe, Maria Cunitz, Catherina Elisabetha Koopman, Maria Margarethe Kirsch, Caroline Herschel, Madame Lepaute, Mary Fairfax Somerville, Maria Mitchell, Williamina Fleming, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt [Dobrosavljevic-Grujic]. International events leading to space exploration pre-20th century include telescope observations, theorizing the rocket equation, and proposing the space elevator [Wikipedia].

A golden age of science fiction played a huge role in inspiring and proposing innovative, sometimes scientifically feasible, ideas to explore space [Questia]. “Science fiction stories and films such as George Pal’s Destination Moon’ (written by Robert A. Heinlein) helped to convince the taxpaying public that space flight was not only possible but desirable from both a political and economic point of view” [Moskowitz]. US’ Goddard (yes, the Goddard that NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center is named after) filed US patents on multistage and liquid-fueled rockets in 1914 [Wikipedia], developed theoretical methods to reach extreme altitudes with rockets [Goddard] in 1919, and launched his first liquid-fueled rocket. Much of Goddard’s progress resided amidst the times of World War I. In 1923, Germany’s Oberth self-published his doctoral thesis “By Rocket into Planetary Space” with the subsequent formation of the Society for Space Travel (Verein für Raumschiffahrt) established in 1927, focused on space travel with rockets. The USSR (current-day Russia) founded the Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel in 1924, focused on rocket and orbital mechanics.

World War II was a major catalyst in progressing rocket technology as the US, German, and USSR governments pooled their resources to develop missiles. The wealth and productivity of a single inventor or group of scientists pale in comparison to the wealth and urgency of a nation in wartime. The first spaceflight (first crossing of the Kármán line) in history was achieved on June 20th, 1944 by the V-2 rocket under the direction of Nazi Germany and Dr. Wernher von Braun. Upon the resolution of World War II, von Braun surrendered to the Americans in Bavaria, and “for fifteen years after World War II, Von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles” [NASA]. With the strategic capture of the leading rocket expert of the world (and many other German specialists), the US began to dominate unprecedented aerospace achievements from 1946 to 1956: first space research flight,  first pictures of Earth from 105 km, first animals in space (fruit flies), the first two-stage liquid-fueled rocket with an altitude record, and the first rocket to pass the Thermopause and enter the Exosphere [Wikipedia]. The US established the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA under military pretenses, which ultimately became the first centers of NASA.

The Cold War began in 1947, fostering an ideological tension that led to the technological arena for competition: the Space Race. Both the US and Soviet governments had prioritized the development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), which is another way of saying weaponized rockets, ultimately won by the USSR with the R-7 mission. The demand for intelligence gave rise to overhead reconnaissance programs, which began as U-2 overflights but transitioned to reconnaissance satellites. Thus began the race to send the first satellite to space, which was ultimately won in 1957 by the USSR in their launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and the first biological spacecraft, Sputnik 2. In response, the US formed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, and just three months later, launched their first satellite, Explorer I, into orbit.

Refer to the infographic to see an early history of satellites that illustrates unprecedented missions and the entrance of other nations in sending their first satellites to space.

The next obvious title to seize was the first human spaceflight, won by the USSR for sending the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to space. Not even a month later, NASA sent Alan Shepherd to space. The decade of 1960 saw the first solar and interplanetary satellites and probes, the rise in geosynchronous communications satellites,  but prominently featured advances in human spaceflight around the moon. The USSR had the Luna missions and the US had the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. Apollo 8 released the famous Earthrise photo. The most famous lunar mission, Apollo 11, sent the first human to the Moon’s surface and saw the first launch from a celestial body other than the Earth. We also returned 22 kilograms of moon samples, contributing heavily to the planetary science field. In subsequent missions between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo missions returned 382 kilograms of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand, and dust from the lunar surface. For various reasons, the USSR failed to dominate the race to the moon despite its very early and promising progress [Zak]. US spending (and arguably activity) peaked during the Apollo program [Wikipedia] and although Roscosmos’ historical budget is unavailable over time, the Soviet defense budget increased steadily during this time to surpass the US defense spending [Nintil].

In the 1970s, the narrow lunar focus broadened to incorporate the other planets. First, to our nearest neighbors Venus and Mars, then, to Jupiter and Mercury. In 1975, we saw the formation of the European Space Agency and the surprising collaboration between the USSR and USA in the first multinational manned mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, amidst the ongoing Cold War. NASA continued the attitude of international collaboration with Germany’s DLR on Helios 2 and ESA and the UK’s SERC on the International Ultraviolet Explorer toward the end of the decade. NASA also made an unprecedented successful planetary surface landing on Mars, sending back the first photos from the surface of Mars through Viking Lander.

The 1980s saw the rise of persistent space structures (first reusable crewed orbital spacecraft, first infrared and microwave observatories, first consistently inhabited long-term research space station), more sophisticated interplanetary missions (first balloon on another planet Venus, first Uranus, comet, and Neptune flyby), and the first spacewalks (first untethered spacewalk and first spacewalk by a woman). The last Soviet Union missions were flybys of Halley’s comet, Vega 1 and Vega 2, in 1986 before the collapse of the USSR in 1991, ending the Space Race definitively. In 1986, America suffered a devastating loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger, a formative memory of the US space program. Challenger hosted many cultural firsts: first American female astronaut, Sally Ride, first African American astronaut, Guion Bluford, and first Asian American astronaut, Ellison Onizuka (from Kealakekua, Hawaiʻi!). Although American attitudes shifted towards a net positive assessment of the benefits and costs of space exploration [Miller], the space shuttle program would change drastically to reduce the effectiveness of the program by exerting extreme caution: no more civilian launches, satellite launches shifted from the space shuttle to reusable rockets, and astronauts no longer tasked with risky spacewalks [Howell].

Voyager 1 has left the solar system (Voyager exited the sun’s influence in 2012) and with Voyager’s collected imagery, the first photograph of the whole Solar System can be formed at the start of 1990. As the result of a NASA/ESA collaboration, the Hubble Space Telescope is installed and is still currently in operation, well known both as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. NASA injects the first spacecraft into Jupiter’s orbit and successfully lands the first operational rover on another planet, Mars. Japan contributes the first orbital radio observatory. Although not the first detection of an exoplanet, the first confirmed published discovery of an exoplanet is in 1992 by Canadian and Polish scientists [A. Wolszczan & D. A. Frail]. Russia reenters its efforts in space by recording the longest duration of spaceflight. Russia, the USA, Europe, Japan, and Canada participate in the first multinational space station and largest artificial object built-in space to date, the International Space Station; a terrific end to the millennium.

Modern-day history, from 2000 onwards, does not break as many technological records in quick succession as many technological firsts have been accomplished in early history. Russia seems not to participate in record-breaking, although they continue to offer crewed space support for the ISS. NASA and ESA capture the spacecraft firsts for the remaining major celestial bodies: first orbiting of an asteroid, first orbit of Saturn, first soft landing in the outer Solar System, the first orbit of Mercury, the first orbit of dwarf planet Ceres, and first flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto. The US starts prioritizing sample return missions, like solar wind particles and comet samples, and the identification of exoplanets through the Kepler space telescope. Japan contributes the first sample return of an operational rover on an asteroid. Many innovative space missions remain unmentioned, like instruments on the ISS or the multiple missions to the Moon and Mars, as they do not break records but generally, the recent trend for spacecraft technology is to accommodate ambitious science missions and payloads. We also see a rise in commercial space dominance around rockets, distributing the responsibility of spacefaring from governments to private companies. Finally, we see the lightning-fast entrance of the Chinese government in sending spacecraft to the far side of the moon with Chinese space agency budget implications toward even more space involvement.

Although most of the noted space history was achieved by a handful of countries, citizens from over 41 countries have flown in space. Many failed spacecraft and follow-on missions were not listed due to precedence; a full list may be found on Wikipedia. A Solar System exploration timeline organizes a subset of the unprecedented missions that were specifically to Solar System bodies while appending successor missions. Although most missions are associated with the space agency and country of origin, many aerospace businesses and academics contributed to the overall progress of spaceflight, which will be described in detail in the major players (who?) section.

Present and Future

The majority of American ongoing spacecraft missions are Earth-observing satellites, payloads on the ISS, Solar System spacecraft, solar missions, and universe observing observatories. Many of the Solar System spacecraft are Mars-centric but some noteworthy spacecraft outside Mars are Juno, an orbiter around Jupiter that is the farthest spacecraft from the sun to derive power solely from the sun, the Rosetta Orbiter, OSIRIS-REx, and the still transmitting interstellar Voyager missions. A particularly exciting form factor is the rise of small satellites for real NASA missions, including but not limited to MARCO, MinXSS, and RainCube.

Satellites have been getting progressively smaller as technology advances. The main trends include more capable and reliable commercial-off-the-shelf microelectronics devices while miniaturizing the volume and minimizing mass [Sweeting]. Although an iPhone is magnitudes more capable than the Apollo command module [Kendall], small satellites are not going to replace large satellites, rather complement and open up new mission paradigms [Sweeting]. Instead of placing state-of-the-art instrumentation on a large satellite that is constrained to a single measurement at a specific place and time, small satellite missions allow the deployment of a multitude of spacecraft with less capable sensors but more distributed observations over many places simultaneously. This paradigm shift distributes capabilities, risk, and cost, resulting in lower barriers to entering space.

Small satellite missions became immensely popular with the standardization of cube satellites [CubeSat 101]. ‘Professors Jordi Puig-Suari of California Polytechnic State University and Bob Twiggs of Stanford University proposed the CubeSat reference design in 1999’ without the intention of setting a standard [Wikipedia]. Instead, ‘Twiggs set out to find “how much could you reduce the size and still have a practical satellite”’ and formed a modified Orbiting Picosatellite Automatic Launcher, called the Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD). The reliability and wide adoption of the P-POD and CubeSat standard along with Twiggs’ efforts on CubeSats from educational institutions bring us to today’s popularity of the CubeSat form for small business and educational programs, like the Artemis Student Challenges program that funds the development of this course. Although cube satellite development was originally intended for graduate students, this course lowers the barrier of entry to space even lower to undergraduate level education. After prolonged involvement with Mars, NASA is refocusing on building infrastructure on the Moon to support future human exploration and ultimately send the first woman to the surface of the moon with the Artemis program.

Future NASA missions include astronomical observatories (Euclid, Webb, WFIRST), adventurous celestial body missions (Dragonfly, Europa Clipper, JUICE, Lucy, Psyche), and more ambitious CubeSat missions (TROPICS, SunRISE, Q-PACE, LunaH-Map, CUPID). Every decade, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducts surveys in the field of Astrophysics, Planetary Science, Heliophysics, and Earth Sciences. Typically, these surveys are accompanied by strategies and foci moving forward to answer the highest priority science investigations.