Modern society is in high technology of science with rapid development, which makes eyes turn to outside the earth, space. Aerospace engineering is a part of electronic engineering that develops satellites to sustain long lifespan in the space, and operates by connecting them with radio waves. It leads to improvements in all kinds of engineering and has a close relation to national defense power as a standard to distinguish the world powers. There are four countries called the “Powers of Aerospace Engineering”, Russia, the United States, Japan, and China.
Russia was the first to launch the satellite ‘Spuntnik’ in 1957, boarding a living organism and an astronaut ‘Yurii Gagarin’. However, the United States followed Russia immediately by putting Lance Armstrong on the moon in 1969. Those countries have competed in aerospace engineering as well as national defense power. The Soyuz, a spacecraft of Russia that has been used since the 1960s, never caused any deaths although it lacked wings, which caused the route disturbance during descent. In contrast, a US ship caused some casualties, but US now has the most accurate rocket launching and attacking system now. The US established NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), which is responsible for oversights of launch operations and management of unmanned NASA launches, having goals to expand scientific understanding of the earth and the universe. The RKA (Russian Federal Space Agency) is undertaking PPTS (Prospective Piloted Transport System) to develop a new-generation partially reusable capsule manned spacecraft to replace the current Soyuz. Surprisingly, RKA and NASA collaborate in the international space station (ISS) program, which combines the core space modules from Russia with unity modules from US. In addition, RKA has goals to return to the moon, Mars, and Venus and develop new weather satellites by 2018.
Japan is trying to observe the atmosphere of earth. JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) launched its satellite GOSAT (Greenhouse Gas Observing Satellite) to monitor the density distribution of carbon dioxide. The existing carbon dioxide observatories were distributed so unevenly throughout the globe that they could not be monitored accurately. GOSAT may be able to gather more accurate data. Furthermore, sensors for methane and other greenhouse gasses are also being considered for the satellite. JAXA has been using the M-V (Mu-Five) solid-fueled rocket and is doing further R&D to increase the performance of its mechanical coolers, which enable a warm launch without liquid helium below temperature 4.5K.
China started aerospace engineering at a later period, but rapidly came to the top in its field. In 2004, China officially joined the Galileo project which is a global navigation satellite system. Galileo will be equipped with a transponder which relays distress signals from the user’s transmitter to the rescue co-ordination center. It will also be able to inform users that help is on the way. The latter feature will upgrade the GPS navigation system, which does not currently provide feedback to the user.
Aerospace engineering is exploring space but, ultimately, it is for the earth. It is expected for aerospace technology to provide more conveniences in human life rapidly. Korea also plans to launch the first stage of a rocket with its technology by 2021 and explore the moon in 2025. Hopefully, Korean will join the powers with a successful launch.