Important Facts For Prelims
CST-100 Starliner
- 21 Dec 2019
- 2 min read
Why in News
CST-100 Starliner is a space capsule of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) which failed its first test flight. Its objective was to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
Key Points
- The capsule CST-100 Starliner was built by Boieng.
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) relies on Russia to get its astronauts on the space station.This failure is likely to push back further NASA’s attempt at resuming human spaceflight from the United States.
- NASA has contracts with Boeing and SpaceX to build spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.
- SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is scheduled to launch in 2020. It will be a crewless flight, and if it succeeds, SpaceX could be in a position to send astronauts into space.
International Space Station
- The International Space Station (ISS) is a habitable artificial satellite - the single largest man-made structure in low earth orbit.
- It circles the Earth in roughly 92 minutes and completes 15.5 orbits per day.
- The ISS programme is a joint project between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada) but its ownership and use has been established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements.
- Its first component was launched into orbit in 1998 and its development and assembly still continues.
- It serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields.
- Continuous presence at ISS has resulted into the longest continuous human presence in the low earth orbit.
- It is expected to operate until 2030.
