| Flight controllers also tested a new maneuvering technique called aerobraking, which uses a planet's atmosphere to slow a spacecraft. |
| The first privately funded spacecraft lifts off from an airstrip in the Mojave Desert. |
| If the planet has an atmosphere, it can be used for aerobraking to slow down the spacecraft, and this has been done at Mars. |
| Electrical devices on spacecrafts, satellites, and aircraft must work reliably and efficiently in situations where they can not be easily repaired. |
| Five other spacecrafts also rocketed through the upper atmosphere of the planet that was earth. |
| Using our current spacecrafts it would take over 73,000 years to get to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. |
