Personal Space

Everyone knows the main players in the space scene are America, China, and Russia. But there are many other countries that you may not know about. First, though, let’s talk about the most known space programs. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is known for being the first and only space agency to send a man to the moon and has launched the only object to reach interstellar space, Voyagers 1. The Russian space program Roscosmos was founded after the fall of the Soviet Union and is currently most known for their ability to reliably transport astronauts to the ISS (International Space Station). China’s space program CNSA (China National Space Administration) is currently working on their Tiangong space station as well as other projects such as lunar research and international cooperative missions. 

These may be the three main countries in space, but there are in fact many more. India has a space program named the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). Recently, in 2009, they found three bacteria species that have high resistance to ultraviolet radiation in the upper atmosphere and in 2013 sent a satellite to Mars known as Mangalyaan. Iran also has a space agency, the ISA (Iranian Space Agency) was formed in 2004 and has multiple satellites since. These include the Omid and Rasad-1. The ISA sent out the Omid satellite for data-processing and research and Rasad-1 for imaging purposes. Lastly is the Italian space agency (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) which is more focused on sending astronauts to space. They have been training astronauts as part of  ESA (European Space Agency). This is a brief look at just a couple of the space programs you probably never heard of.