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Plants in space
Plants in space are plants grown aboard spacecraft and space stations to study how spaceflight affects plant biology and test whether crops can supplement astronaut diets on long missions.
Plasma propulsion engine
A plasma propulsion engine, or plasma thruster, is a spacecraft engine that accelerates ionized propellant, usually xenon, with electric or magnetic fields to produce thrust.
Plesetsk Cosmodrome
Plesetsk Cosmodrome (космодром Плесецк) is a Russian military spaceport in Arkhangelsk Oblast, the northernmost launch site in the world, first used for orbital launches in 1966.
Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Космодром Плесецк)
Plesetsk Cosmodrome, also known as Plesetsk Space Center, is a Russian military spaceport in the Arkhangelsk region, founded in 1957 as the Soviet Union's first operational ICBM base.
Plug nozzle
A plug nozzle, also called an aerospike, is a rocket nozzle in which exhaust expands on the outside of a central plug, giving altitude compensation.
Plum Brook Station
Plum Brook Station, renamed the Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in 2020, is NASA Glenn's 6,400-acre test campus in Sandusky, Ohio, with the world's largest vacuum chamber.
PocketQube
A PocketQube is a standardized picosatellite format of 5 cm cubes weighing at most 250 g, proposed in 2009 by Robert Twiggs at Morehead State University.
Pogo oscillation
Pogo oscillation, also called pogo instability or pogo effect, is a self-excited longitudinal vibration of liquid-propellant launch vehicles, first observed on Titan II flights in 1962.
Point Arguello
Point Arguello is a coastal site near Lompoc, California, that served from 1958 to 1964 as the Naval Missile Facility, the main launch complex of the Navy's Pacific Missile Range.
Poker Flat Research Range
Poker Flat Research Range is a sounding rocket launch facility about 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska, and the world's only university-owned scientific rocket range.
Polar orbit
A polar orbit is an orbit inclined 90 degrees in which a spacecraft passes over both poles, the standard choice for Earth mapping and environmental monitoring.
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (ध्रुवीय उपग्रह प्रक्षेपण यान)
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, also known as ध्रुवीय उपग्रह प्रक्षेपण यान or PSLV, is a four-stage Indian rocket developed by ISRO, first flown in 1993 as its workhorse launcher.
Polydeuces (moon)
Polydeuces (Saturn XXXIV) is a small Trojan moon of Saturn, discovered by Cassini in 2004, trailing Dione by 60 degrees near its L5 Lagrange point.
Polyus (Полюс) (spacecraft)
Polyus, also designated Skif-DM, was a Soviet experimental spacecraft launched on May 15, 1987 as the payload of the Energia rocket's maiden flight; a guidance failure prevented orbital insertion.
Post-mission disposal
Post-mission disposal (PMD) is the set of end-of-life actions that move spent spacecraft and rocket stages to reentry, graveyard orbits, or Earth escape, with rules like the FCC's 5-year deorbit requirement.
Prasanth Nair
Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, born 1976 in Kerala, is an Indian Air Force commodore and test pilot selected as one of four astronauts for India's Gaganyaan crewed space mission.
Pratham
Pratham, a 10.7 kg microsatellite built by IIT Bombay students with ISRO guidance, launched on 26 September 2016 to measure total electron content of the ionosphere over India and Paris.
Pressure-fed engine
A pressure-fed engine, also called a pressure-fed rocket engine, is a liquid rocket engine in which tank pressure, usually from helium, feeds propellants into the thrust chamber without a turbopump.
Prichal
Prichal (Причал), Russian for "pier," is a spherical docking node module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, launched and docked in November 2021.
Primary life support system
The primary life support system, or Portable Life Support System, is the spacesuit backpack that supplies oxygen, removes carbon dioxide, and cools astronauts during spacewalks.
Priroda
Priroda (Природа, "Nature") was the last permanent research module of the Russian Mir space station, launched in 1996 for Earth remote sensing and carrying experiments from twelve nations.
Private spaceflight
Private spaceflight, also called commercial space flight, is spaceflight funded and operated by private companies, from suborbital tourism to commercial ISS crew and cargo transport.
Prognoz
Prognoz (Прогноз, "Forecast") was a series of twelve Soviet scientific satellites launched between 1972 and 1996 to study solar activity, solar flares, and the Earth's magnetosphere.
Progress (spacecraft)
Progress (Прогресс) is an uncrewed Russian cargo spacecraft, derived from the Soyuz crew vehicle, that has delivered propellant, water, and dry cargo to space stations since 1978, burning up on reentry after each mission.
Progress (Прогресс) (spacecraft)
Progress (Прогресс) is a Russian robotic cargo spacecraft, an unpiloted Soyuz derivative first launched in 1978 that delivers supplies, propellant, and water to space stations including the ISS.
Progress M
Progress M (Прогресс-М) was a Soviet and Russian cargo spacecraft, the second generation of the Progress resupply vehicle, which flew from 1989 to the 2000s to deliver supplies to Mir and the International Space Station.
Progress M1-5 (Прогресс М1-5)
Progress M1-5 (Прогресс М1-5) was a Russian Progress M1 cargo spacecraft launched in January 2001 to deorbit the fifteen-year-old Mir space station, which reentered over the South Pacific in March 2001.
Project Echo
Project Echo was NASA's first communications satellite program, in which large inflatable balloon satellites bounced radio signals between ground stations, beginning with Echo 1 in 1960.
Project Gemini
Project Gemini, also called the Gemini program, was NASA's second human spaceflight program, running from 1961 to 1966 as a bridge between Mercury and Apollo.
Project M (NASA)
Project M was a NASA Johnson Space Center mission concept around 2010 to send the humanoid robot Robonaut 2 to the Moon within 1,000 days using a LOX/methane lander.