This week is World Space Week, the annual celebration of all things astronautical and cosmic.
This year’s theme is particularly suitable – discovery, which highlights the great era of deep space discovery that we are in. We have never learnt as much of the universe we live in as in the last decade. Space telescopes, deep space probes and several interplanetary satellites and landers have shown us the magic, wonders and opportunities of new worlds. Space is all about discovery!
Launched specifically on 4th October by the UN General Assembly to mark the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, in 1957, and the signing of the ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ on October 10 1967, World Space Week has been held every year since 1999, and seeks primarily to educate people about the positives of space exploration and encourage better public understanding and support for space programmes.
We hold a large number of books about satellite communications & navigation among our collection, along with a good selection of books about space & space exploration in general. We also have access to the National Geophysical Data Centre database, which provides the lastest satellite geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth’s sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space, and the NASA Scientific & Technical Information database, which includes up-to-date information about NASA’s satellite projects.
To find out more about the programme, visit the World Space Week website here: