While Dream Chaser was not chosen for CCDev, it was chosen for the second round of the Commercial Resupply Services, to begin in 2019. A cargo version is being developed which will have folding wings so it can fit in the Atlas V's 5-meter fairing. It will be capable of carrying a total of 5,500 kg of cargo to the International Space Station, and return up to 1,750 kg of cargo to Earth.
Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human to orbit the earth. Yuri Gagarin joined the Soviet Air Force in 1955 and graduated with honors from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957. Soon afterward, he became a military fighter pilot. By 1959, he had been selected for cosmonaut training as part of the first group of USSR cosmonauts. Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission. On April 12, 1961 he became the first human to orbit Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour. The flight lasted 108 minutes. At its highest point, Gagarin was about 200 miles (327 kilometers) above Earth. Once in orbit, Yuri Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft. Vostok's reentry was controlled by a computer program sending radio commands to the space capsule. Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after reentry into Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 20,000 feet and landed by parachute. As pilot of the spaceship Vostok 1, he proved that man could endure the rigors of lift-off, re-entry, and weightlessness. As a result of his historic flight he became an international hero and legend. Colonel Gagarin died on March 27, 1968 when the MiG-15 airplane he was piloting crashed near Moscow. He was given a hero's funeral, his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall. He is popularly known as “The Columbus of the Cosmos”.
An Atlas V 551 rocket launches from SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on January 19, 2006, carrying the New Horizons probe, which would visit Pluto on July 14, 2015. It was the first launch with the 551 configuration, its launch augmented by five AerojetAJ-60A solid-rocket motors, providing a total of 2.7 million lb-f of thrust at liftoff. New Horizons would achieve the fastest velocity at launch of any spacecraft, at 58,000 kilometres per hour (36,000 mph). It was the first spacecraft launched directly into a solar escape trajectory.
... that astronaut James McDivitt saw a UFO during his first spaceflight?
Angara
…that the South Korean launch system Naro-1, which made its first flight on 25 August 2009, is based on the Russian Angara (pictured)?
…that when investigating the Challenger accident, Richard Feynman threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on the reliability of the shuttle?