2007 in spaceflight 2007 in spaceflight The year 2007 contained several significant events in spaceflight, including a Chinese ASAT test, the launches of the US Phoenix and Dawn missions to study Mars and Asteroid belt respectively, Japan's Kaguya Lunar orbiter, and the first Chinese Lunar probe, Chang'e 1. The internationally accepted definition of a spaceflight is any flight which crosses the Kármán line, 100 kilometres above sea level. The first recorded spaceflight launch of the year occurred on 10 January, when a PSLV, launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, placed four spacecraft into low Earth orbit. One of these spacecraft was SRE-1,
European Lunar Explorer European Lunar Explorer The European Lunar Explorer (ELE) or European Lunar Lander (ELL) was a planned Romanian Lunar lander. It was being developed by ARCA, as an entrant for the Google Lunar X Prize, until it was cancelled in 2014. It was intended to have a mass of 400 kilograms when fully fueled, including two upper stages to propel it from low Earth orbit onto a trajectory towards the Moon. The lander itself had a monopropellant cold rocket engine, fuelled by hydrogen peroxide, which was to slow its descent towards the surface of the Moon. The target landing site was