Point Nemo
Point Nemo, in translation "no man's territory", also referencing Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea adventure novel, was considered a suitable name for the most remote spot in the ocean, the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, and a suitable place for a spacecraft cemetery.
Pole of Inaccessibility
The Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility is the final destination point for larger spacecraft that cannot disintegrate and burn up as they enter the Earth atmosphere. The heat produced by air friction burns up small satellites entirely, but not other much larger devices. Since 1971, over 260 spacecraft have been dumped in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean at Point Nemo, the farthest point from land. The International Space Station (ISS) orbits at a maximum altitude of 416 km and when it is just above Point Nemo, it is the closest location of human life to the space cemetery.
So as not to allow the craft to become debris and endanger an entire ecosystem, space agencies have sent to the Pacific Spacecraft Cemetery more than 140 Russian resupply vehicles, the space station MIR, 6 Salyut stations, Russian Progress cargo craft, the Japanese H-II transfer vehicle, the European Space Agency cargo ships, 4 of Japan's HTV cargo craft, and the list goes on. When it completes its mission, the International Space Station will probably also end up at Point Nemo, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Point Nemo
Spacecraft Cemetery
Named after Jules Verne's character in
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
Location:
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The Pacific Ocean
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The furthest point from any dry land, equidistant from the three nearest islands
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2.668 km from each of the three points
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Located 48° 52.6 S, 123° 23.6 W
The International Space Station is due to be deorbited in 2031. (Image credit: Darryl Fonseka, Text: Noah's Ark, An Improbable Space Survival Kit)
A few of
the famous:
Sources: NASA Archives &
Encyclopædia Britannica
Mir
Soviet-Russian space station
Mir, Soviet/Russian modular space station, the core module (base block) of which was launched into Earth orbit by the U.S.S.R. in 1986. Over the next decade additional modules were sent aloft on separate launch vehicles and attached to the core unit, creating a large habitat that served as a versatile space laboratory for more than 14 years.
Mir (Russian: “Peace” or “World”) was the third generation of space stations developed by the Soviet Union. Its core module resembled its simpler predecessors in the Salyut series but had additional docking ports (a total of six) that accommodated not only a succession of crewed spacecraft and cargo ferries but also permanently attached expansion modules equipped for scientific research.
Salyut
Soviet space station series
Salyut, any of a series of Soviet space stations (of two designs), launched between 1971 and 1982, that served as living quarters and scientific laboratories or military reconnaissance platforms. The program name Salyut (Russian: “Salute”) was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin’s historic first orbit of Earth in 1961.
Salyut 1, launched April 19, 1971, was the world’s first space station. It weighed 20 metric tons, had a single docking port, and took the form of a stepped cylinder 14.6 metres (48 feet) long, with its widest, rearmost section 4.25 metres (13.9 feet) in diameter. After a record-breaking 23 days aboard Salyut 1 in June 1971, the inaugural three-man crew died while returning to Earth when their Soyuz, which at that time carried no support system for individual pressure suits, inadvertently lost its air.
Salyut 2 (launched 1973) suffered an explosion after being placed in orbit and was never occupied. Salyuts 3 and 5 (1974 and 1976, respectively) were military space stations, while Salyut 4 (1974) was basically for scientific purposes. The scientific Salyuts 6 and 7 (1977 and 1982, respectively) were of an advanced design that featured a new refueling system and better living quarters.
Sources: NASA Archives &
Encyclopædia Britannica
Sources: NASA Archives,
Encyclopædia Britannica & BBC
Skylab
United States space station
Skylab, first U.S. space station, launched into Earth orbit on May 14, 1973. Three successive crews of visiting astronauts carried out investigations of the human body’s adaptation to the space environment, studied the Sun in unprecedented detail, and undertook pioneering Earth-resources observations.
Skylab was an outcome of the Apollo Applications Program set up by the NASA in 1965 to adapt spacecraft and systems developed for the U.S. Moon landing program to a variety of scientific missions.
Skylab was 30.2 metres in length and 6.7 metres in diameter and had a mass of about 75,000 kg. Although limited by its consumable resources in the same way as the Soviet Union’s first-generation Salyut stations, Skylab was much roomier and capable of more research. Its main scientific instrument, the Apollo Telescope Mount, incorporated a number of component telescopes and other devices for observing the Sun over a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum, from visible light through X-rays.