Epedition 11 Soyuz Transport. NASA public domain image colelction.

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The second stage of a Boeing Delta II rocket begins its move up the tower at Pad 17A, Cape Canaveral Air Station, for mating with the first stage. The rocket is targeted for launch on Feb. 6, carrying the <a href="http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/captions/subjects/stardust.htm">Stardust </a> spacecraft into space for a close encounter with the comet Wild 2 in January 2004. Using a substance called aerogel, Stardust will capture comet particles flying off the nucleus of the comet, plus collect interstellar dust for later analysis. The collected samples will return to Earth in a sample return capsule to be jettisoned as Stardust swings by Earth in January 2006 KSC-99pc57

The Visitors Information Center "Rocket Garden."

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – The second stage, or upper stage, of a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket and the transporter to which it is attached are lifted out of a transportation trailer in the Building 836 hangar on south Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The stage will be moved to the Horizontal Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 2 for further processing. The Delta II rocket will be used to deliver NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission, or SMAP, into orbit. SMAP will provide global measurements of soil moisture and its freeze/thaw state. These measurements will be used to enhance understanding of processes that link the water, energy and carbon cycles, and to extend the capabilities of weather and climate prediction models. SMAP data also will be used to quantify net carbon flux in boreal landscapes and to develop improved flood prediction and drought monitoring capabilities. Launch is scheduled for November 2014. To learn more about SMAP, visit http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov. Photo credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin KSC-2014-3164

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- After being rotated from a horizontal to vertical position, the canister that contains the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, or MPLM, for the STS-135 mission, has been lowered onto a transportation vehicle in the Canister Rotation Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim are targeted to lift off on space shuttle Atlantis July 8, taking with them the MPLM packed with supplies, logistics and spare parts to the International Space Station. The STS-135 mission also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems. STS-135 will be the 33rd flight of Atlantis, the 37th shuttle mission to the space station, and the 135th and final mission of NASA's Space Shuttle Program. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts135/index.html. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2011-4439

Expedition 30 Soyuz Rollout (201112190002HQ)

EFT-1 Crew Module preparations to move to KSC Visitor Complex

Epedition 11 Soyuz Transport. NASA public domain image colelction.

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Summary

The Soyuz TMA-6 vehicle is seen on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Wednesday, April 13, 2005, as preparations continued for the April 15 launch to send Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips and European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori, of Italy, to the International Space Station. Krikalev and Phillips will spend six months in space and greet the first Shuttle crew to fly in more than two years when it arrives at the station, while Vittori spends eight days on the station under a commercial contract between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Soviet Space

Over its sixty-year history, primarily classified military The Soviet space program was responsible for a number of pioneering accomplishments in space flight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (cosmonaut Alexey Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the moon (Luna 3) and unmanned lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover (Lunokhod 1), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth (Luna 16), and first space station (Salyut 1). Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets.