Spacecrafts are huge and heavy machines that are made to travel in space. Spacecrafts can explore a variety of things in space. They are designed differently depending on the purpose of exploration.

Keeping an eye on Earth – Satellites are spacecrafts that are perfect for Earth observation. They orbit around the Earth. Some take pictures of Earth that gives clues about its environment. Some bounce back TV and phone signals to earth. A few satellites are even used as spies ( shhhh! ) to peek into other countries. Russia’s Sputnik 1 was the world’s first artificial satellite.

Space trucks- Space Shuttles are partly reusable spacecrafts used for transportation of humans and cargo into the space. Rockets, in turn, propel space shuttles into space.

Ahoy! Let us explore – The Curiosity rover, launched aboard the Mars Science Laboratory(MSL) spacecraft, is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars. Cassini–Huygens is another robotic spacecraft sent mainly, to study planet Saturn and its biggest moon Titan.

Walking on the moon – Before a human could step on moon, seven robotic spacecrafts(Surveyor1-7) were sent to the surface of the Moon by NASA to study the possibility of safe landing. All seven spacecrafts are still on the Moon.

What lies beyond our Solar System? – How large is the Universe? Where does it end? How far does it stretch? To find the answer to these questions NASA has up till now launched spacecrafts – Voyager 1 and 2 and New horizons.

Answer this:

Which spacecraft was used for very recent Expedition 33 whose members were Sunita Williams, Akihiko Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko ?

Which natural satellite orbits around Earth?