NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

NASA is the most popular space agency whose headquarters is located at Washington, USA. It was established on 1st October 1958. It has 10 field centers, which provide a major role in the execution of NASA’s work. NASA is supporting International Space Station which is an international collaborative work on space research. It has landed rovers on Mars, analysed the atmosphere of Jupiter, explored Saturn and Mercury.

The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs helped NASA learn more about flying in space. NASA’s robotic space probes have visited every planet in the solar system. Satellites launched by NASA have revealed a wealth of data about Earth, resulting in valuable information such as a better understanding of weather patterns. NASA technology has contributed to make many items used in everyday life, from smoke detectors to medical tests.

Apollo Mission

Apollo Missions are the most popular missions of NASA. These missions made American Astronauts to land on the Moon. It consists of totally 17 missions. Among them Apollo -8 and Apollo-11 are more remarkable. Apollo-8 was the first manned mission to go to the Moon. It orbited around the Moon and came back to the Earth. Apollo-11 was the first ‘Man Landing Mission’ to the moon. It landed on the Moon on 20th July 1969. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the surface of the Moon.

The members present in the crew during the Man Landing Mission were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

NASA’s work with ISRO

NASA made an agreement to work with ISRO to launch the NISAR Satellite (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) and Mars Exploration Missions.

Work of Indians at NASA

People of Indian origin in America are working in NASA and they have made remarkable contribution to NASA.

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla was born on 17th March 1962 in Karnal, Punjab. In 1988, she joined the NASA. She was selected to take part in the Colombia Shuttle Mission in 1997 and she became the first Indian women astronaut to go to space. On her second mission on the Colombia Shuttle, she lost her life, when the shuttle broke down.

Kalpana Chawla travelled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours in space.

Activity 5

Visit a library and gather more information about the achievements of Kalpana Chawla. Discuss why Kalpana Chawla is an inspiration to all of us.

Sunitha Williams

Sunitha Williams was born on 19th September 1965 in USA. She started her career as an astronaut in August 1998. She made two trips to the International Space Station. She set a record of the longest space walking time by a female astronaut in 2012, with a total space walk of 50 hour and 40 minute (7 space walks). She is one of the crew of NASA’s Manned Mars Mission.