Chris Hadfield

Chris Austin Hadfield OC OOnt MSC CD (born 29 August 1959) is a retired Canadian astronaut who was the first Canadian to walk in space. An engineer and former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, Hadfield has flown two space shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station.

Hadfield, who was raised on a farm in southern Ontario, was inspired as a child when he watched the Apollo 11 Moon landing on TV. He attended high school in Oakville and Milton and earned his glider pilot licence as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces and earned an engineering degree at Royal Military College. While in the military he learned to fly various types of aircraft and eventually became a test pilot and flew several experimental planes. As part of an exchange program with the United States Navy and United States Air Force, he obtained a master's degree in aviation systems at the University of Tennessee Space Institute.

Space station

A space station, also known as an orbital station or an orbital space station, is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew, which is designed to remain in space (most commonly as an artificial satellite in low Earth orbit) for an extended period of time and for other spacecraft to dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by lack of major propulsion or landing systems. Instead, other vehicles transport people and cargo to and from the station. As of September 2014 two space stations are in orbit: the International Space Station, which is permanently manned, and China's Tiangong-1 (which successfully launched on September 29, 2011), which is unmanned most of the time. Previous stations include the Almaz and Salyut series, Skylab and most recently Mir.

Today's space stations are research platforms, used to study the effects of long-term space flight on the human body as well as to provide platforms for greater number and length of scientific studies than available on other space vehicles. Each crew member staying aboard the station for weeks or months, but rarely more than a year. Most of the time crew remain at station but its not necessary that crew should have to be stay at station. Since the ill-fated flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations. The duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.7 days, set by Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2013, three astronauts have completed single missions of over a year, all aboard Mir.

Chris

Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Unlike these names, however, it does not indicate the person's gender although it is much more common for males to have this name than it is for females.

It is the preferred form of the full name of such notable individuals as Chris Tucker and Chris Penn. To find an article about one of these people, see List of all pages beginning with "Chris".

The word is also part of phrases, including Tropical Storm Chris, Ruth's Chris Steak House, and many more which refer to notable people, places, and things. For a list of these, see All pages with titles containing chris.

People with the given name

Canadian Space Agency

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) (French: Agence spatiale canadienne; ASC) was established by the Canadian Space Agency Act which received Royal Assent on May 10, 1990. The president of the agency is Sylvain Laporte who reports to the Minister of Industry. He was appointed as president on February 27, 2015 effective March 9, 2015.

The headquarters of the CSA is located at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. The agency also has offices in Ottawa, Ontario, at the David Florida Laboratory (which is mainly an engineering installation), and small liaison offices in Washington, Paris, Cape Canaveral, and Houston.

History, mission and mandate

The origins of the Canadian upper atmosphere and space program may be traced back to the end of the Second World War. Between 1945 and 1960, Canada undertook a number of small launcher and satellite related projects under the aegis of defence research, including the development of the Black Brant rocket as well as series of advanced studies examining both orbital rendezvous and re-entry. In 1957, scientists and engineers at the Canadian Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment (DRTE) under the leadership of John H. Chapman embarked on a project initially known simply as S-27 or the Topside Sounder Project. This work would soon lead to the development of Canada's first satellite known as Alouette 1.

List of government space agencies

This is a list of government agencies engaged in activities related to outer space and space exploration.

As of 2015, 70 different government space agencies are in existence; 13 of those have launch capability. Six government space agencies - the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (RFSA or Roscosmos) - have full launch capabilities; these include the ability to launch and recover multiple satellites, deploy cryogenic rocket engines and operate extraterrestrial probes. Only three currently operating government space agencies in the world - NASA, the RFSA and the CNSA - are capable of human spaceflight.

The name given is the English version, with the native language version below. The acronym given is the most common acronym: this can either be the acronym of the English version (e.g. JAXA), or the acronym in the native language. Where there are multiple acronyms in common use, the English one is given first.