1,868 articles
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the official visitor center of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, offering exhibits, bus tours, and launch viewing.
Kepler field
The Kepler field is a 115-square-degree patch of sky in Cygnus and Lyra that NASA's Kepler telescope monitored from 2009 to 2013 to find exoplanets.
Kepler space telescope
Kepler was a NASA space telescope launched in 2009 to find exoplanets by detecting dips in starlight; it found over 3,200 planets before retiring in 2018.
Kessler syndrome
The Kessler syndrome, also called the Kessler effect, is a theoretical runaway cascade of orbital debris collisions proposed by NASA scientists Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais in 1978.
KH-8
The KH-8, also called Gambit-3, was an American film-return photoreconnaissance satellite operated by the National Reconnaissance Office from 1966 to 1984, completing 50 successful missions photographing Soviet and Chinese targets.
KH-9
KH-9, code-named Hexagon, was a series of American film-return photoreconnaissance satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office between 1971 and 1986, the last US spy satellites to return film to Earth.
Kibō (ISS module)
Kibō (きぼう, "hope") is the Japanese Experiment Module on the International Space Station, Japan's first crewed space laboratory and the largest experiment module on the station.
Kilopower
Kilopower is a small fission nuclear power system developed by NASA and the Department of Energy to deliver 1 to 10 kWe for spacecraft and planetary surfaces.
KinetX Aerospace
KinetX Aerospace is a Phoenix-area, Arizona aerospace company, the first private company qualified by NASA for deep-space navigation, serving missions such as MESSENGER, New Horizons, and OSIRIS-REx.
Kirsi K. Tikka
Kirsi K. Tikka is a Finnish-born naval architect and maritime-safety engineer who retired in 2019 as a senior ABS executive and was elected a US National Academy of Engineering Foreign Member.
Kobalt (satellite)
Kobalt-M, also known as Yantar-4K2M, was a Russian film-return photographic reconnaissance satellite, the final version of the Yantar-4K2 series, launched ten times from Plesetsk between 2004 and 2015.
KOMPSAT-1
KOMPSAT-1 (Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-1; Korean name Arirang 1) was South Korea's first practical Earth observation satellite, built by KARI with TRW, launched in 1999, and operated until 2008.
KOMPSAT-5
KOMPSAT-5 (다목적실용위성 5호, also called Arirang 5) is a South Korean Earth observation satellite operated by KARI, launched in 2013 and carrying Korea's first imaging radar.
Koreasat
Koreasat, known in Korean as Mugunghwa (무궁화), is South Korea's series of geostationary communications satellites, nine launched since 1995 and five now operated for KT and KT SAT.
Kosmos 1408 (Космос 1408)
Kosmos 1408 (Космос 1408) was a Soviet electronic intelligence satellite launched in 1982 and destroyed in a Russian anti-satellite missile test in November 2021, creating one of the largest debris clouds in low Earth orbit.
Kosmos 954 (Космос 954)
Kosmos 954 (Космос 954) was a Soviet nuclear-powered ocean-surveillance satellite that failed to boost its reactor core to a disposal orbit and re-entered over northern Canada on 24 January 1978, scattering radioactive debris.
Kosmos-11K63
Kosmos-11K63, also known as the Kosmos-2I or Kosmos-2, was a Soviet light-lift rocket, derived from the R-12 missile, that launched small satellites from 1965 until 1977.
Kosmos-11K65M
Kosmos-11K65M, commonly known as Kosmos-3M, was a Soviet and later Russian two-stage liquid-fueled orbital launch vehicle in service from 1967 to 2010, with 445 launches and a 95.1 percent success rate.
Kosmos-63S1
Kosmos-63S1 was a Soviet two-stage light launch vehicle, the first of the Kosmos family, built on the R-12 missile and flying from Kapustin Yar between 1961 and 1966.
Kounotori 7
Kounotori 7, also designated HTV-7, was the seventh flight of Japan's unpiloted HTV cargo spacecraft, launched in September 2018 to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
KPLO (Danuri)
KPLO, also known as Danuri (다누리) and formally the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, is South Korea's first robotic lunar probe, launched in 2022 with NASA as a partner.
Kristall (ISS module)
Kristall (Кристалл, "crystal") was a technology module of the Russian Mir space station, launched in May 1990 for materials processing in microgravity and used for the first Space Shuttle docking in 1995.
Ku band
The Ku band is the 12 to 18 GHz portion of the microwave spectrum used for satellite communications, including direct-to-home television and LEO broadband constellations.
Kuaizhou-1A
Kuaizhou-1A (快舟一号甲, KZ-1A) is a Chinese solid-propellant launch vehicle developed by ExPace, a subsidiary of CASIC, first flown in 2017 to carry small satellites to low Earth orbit.
Kulasekarapatti launch site
The Kulasekarapatti launch site, formally the SSLV Launch Complex, is an ISRO spaceport under construction in Tamil Nadu, India, for polar launches of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Kurs (docking system)
Kurs (Russian for "course") is the radio-based automated rendezvous and docking system used by Soviet and Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to dock with Mir and the ISS, succeeding IGLA.
Kvant-1
Kvant-1 (Квант-1) was the first research module of the Soviet Mir space station, an astrophysics laboratory docked to Mir's aft port in April 1987 that carried the Roentgen X-ray observatory.
L4 (spacecraft)
L4, ESA's fourth large-class science mission under Voyage 2050, is a planned orbiter and lander to Saturn's moon Enceladus to sample its water plumes and search for signs of life.
Lacrosse (satellite)
Lacrosse, also known as Onyx, was a series of five synthetic aperture radar reconnaissance satellites flown by the US National Reconnaissance Office between 1988 and 2005.
LADEE
LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) was a NASA robotic lunar orbiter that studied the Moon's thin atmosphere and dust, and demonstrated laser communication from lunar orbit.