Spacecraft

Ariane 5 lifts off with the Rosetta probe on 2nd of March, 2004.

A spacecraft is a vehicle that travels through space. Spacecraft include robotic or unmanned space probes as well as manned vehicles. The term is sometimes also used to describe artificial satellites, which have similar design criteria.

The term spaceship is generally applied only to spacecraft capable of transporting people.

A spacesuit has at times been called a miniature spacecraft or spaceship, emphasizing its purpose of keeping its wearer alive while traveling in the vacuum of outer space.

The spacecraft is one of the primal elements in science fiction. Numerous short stories and novels are built up around various ideas for spacecraft. Some hard science fiction books focus on the technical details of the craft, while others treat the spacecraft as a given and delve little into its actual implementation.

A few examples of existing spacecraft

• Cassini
• Cluster
• Genesis
• International Space Station
• Mir
• Pioneer 10
• Progress
• Shuttle Buran
• Shenzhou
• Space Shuttle
• SOHO
• Soyuz spacecraft
• SpaceShipOne
• Stardust
• Vostok spacecraft
• Voyager I and II
• WMAP

Proposed spacecraft

• Crew Exploration Vehicle
• Kliper
• ...list of 25... in various stages of development in 2004

Fictional spacecraft

• Jules Verne wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865
• C-57D (Forbidden Planet)
• Galasphere 347 (Space Patrol - puppet series)
• Fireball XL5
• TARDIS (Doctor Who) - an unconventional time/space vessel
• U.S.S. Enterprise (Star Trek)
• Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)
• Prometheus (Stargate SG-1)
• Liberator (Blake's 7)
• Nostromo (Alien)
• White Star (Babylon 5)
• Lexx - a living spaceship
• Moya (Farscape) - another living spaceship
• Battlestar Galactica from the television series of the same name.
• Jupiter 2 (Lost in Space)
• GSV, or General System Vehicle, a sentient cruiser/habitat (from The Culture series of novels)
• SDF-1 Macross (From Macross and Robotech - television series)

See also

• attitude control
• expendable launch systems
• List of fictional spaceships
• space shuttle
• starship
• spacecraft propulsion
• thruster
• UFO

External links

• NASA: Space Science Spacecraft Missions (http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/)
• Gunter's Space Page - Complete information on spacecraft (http://www.skyrocket.de/space/)

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