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Space Shuttle retirement

The retirement of the Space Shuttle ended NASA's 30-year reusable spaceplane program in 2011, after 135 missions, leaving the United States without its own crewed launch vehicle.

Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster

The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was a pair of recoverable solid-fuel rockets designed to supply extra thrust during the orbiter's ascent.

Space Shuttle thermal protection system

The Space Shuttle thermal protection system, or TPS, was the reusable heat shield of reinforced carbon-carbon panels and nearly 31,000 silica tiles protecting the orbiter during reentry.

Space station

A space station is a crewed spacecraft in orbit around Earth serving as a long-duration laboratory, from Salyut 1 in 1971 to the International Space Station, inhabited continuously since 2000.

Space Station Freedom

Space Station Freedom, also known as the Space Station Freedom Program, was a NASA program announced in 1984 to build an Earth-orbiting space station, merged into the ISS in 1993.

Space suit

A space suit, or EVA suit, is a pressurized garment and life support system that lets astronauts survive and work in vacuum. NASA's Shuttle and station suit is the Extravehicular Mobility Unit.

Space sunshade

A space sunshade, or solar shade, is a proposed structure or spacecraft swarm between the Sun and Earth that would block sunlight to cool the planet.

Space sustainability

Space sustainability is the practice of keeping Earth's orbital environment usable for current and future missions by limiting debris, disposing of spacecraft, and coordinating traffic.

Space Sweepers

Space Sweepers is a 2021 South Korean science fiction space opera directed by Jo Sung-hee, starring Song Joong-ki and Kim Tae-ri, released on Netflix in February 2021.

Space syntax

Space syntax is a set of mathematical and computational techniques for analyzing building and street layouts, relating spatial configuration to movement and social behavior, built on graph theory.

Space technology

Space technology, also known as spaceflight technology, covers the launch vehicles, spacecraft subsystems, and ground networks used to reach and operate in space, with launch costs falling 96% since 1960.

Space Technology 5

Space Technology 5, part of NASA's New Millennium Program, launched three micro-satellites in March 2006 to demonstrate operating a small constellation and test miniaturized space technologies.

Space telescope

A space telescope, also known as a space observatory, is an astronomical observatory placed above Earth's atmosphere, avoiding blurring and absorption to study the universe, as with Hubble and Webb.

Space Telescope Science Institute

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is a Baltimore, Maryland, center, founded in 1983, that runs science operations for the Hubble telescope and all operations of JWST.

Space Test Program

The Space Test Program (STP) is a US Department of Defense program, created in 1966, that provides launches for DoD research and development payloads whose sponsors lack their own spacecraft funding.

Space toilet

A space toilet (also called a zero-gravity or spaceship toilet) is a device that uses directed airflow to collect urine and feces in weightlessness, first flown on Skylab in 1973.

Space tourism

Space tourism is private individuals paying to travel into space for recreation, beginning with Dennis Tito's $20 million Soyuz trip to the ISS in 2001.

Space Tracking and Surveillance System

The Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS Demo) was a US Missile Defense Agency system whose two 2009 satellites demonstrated birth-to-death tracking of ballistic missiles from orbit.

Space Variable Objects Monitor

The Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) is a French-Chinese satellite launched in June 2024 to detect gamma-ray bursts and relay their positions within a minute.

Space vector modulation

Space vector modulation (SVM) is a pulse-width modulation technique for three-phase inverters, yielding about 15% more output voltage than sinusoidal PWM from the same DC supply.

Space warfare

Space warfare: military actions in, from, and to the space domain, covering satellite support of terrestrial operations and counterspace attack modes (ASAT missiles, jamming, cyber, lasers). Key facts: 1967 Outer Space Treaty, 2007 Chinese ASAT test, Desert Storm as first space war, US on-orbit weapons acknowledged 2026.

Space Western

A space western, also called sci-fi western, is a science-fiction subgenre transposing American Western themes onto space frontiers, spanning literature, film, television, and video games.

Space-based data center

A space-based data center, also called an orbital data center, hosts processors and storage on satellites in orbit, powered by solar energy and cooled by radiating heat into space.

Space-Based Infrared System

The Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) is a United States Space Force constellation of infrared surveillance satellites that detects missile launches for early warning and missile defense.

Space-based solar power

Space-based solar power, also called space solar power, is a proposed technology in which satellites collect sunlight in orbit and beam it to Earth, working day and night in all weather.

Space-charge-limited current

Space-charge-limited current (SCLC) is the maximum current that can flow across a gap under a voltage bias, limited by the electrostatic repulsion of the injected charge itself.

Space-charge-limited current method

The space-charge-limited current (SCLC) method extracts carrier mobility and trap parameters from the current–voltage curve of a single-carrier diode, and is widely used in organic and perovskite electronics.

Space-division multiple access

Space-division multiple access (SDMA) is a wireless access technique that serves several users in one frequency band by separating them through their distinct spatial signatures on a base-station antenna array.

Space-division multiplexing

Space-division multiplexing (SDM) is a transmission technique that sends multiple independent data streams through spatially separated paths, such as multicore fibers or MIMO antennas, multiplying capacity without extra spectrum.

Space-frequency block code

A space-frequency block code (SFBC) is a transmit-diversity technique for multicarrier wireless systems that applies an orthogonal block code, usually the Alamouti code, across adjacent OFDM subcarriers.