Space Travel
Senior 6 · English
Space Travel
Lesson 3 of 4
25 min
Let's begin
A good report on space travel moves through time: what a mission did, what the next one is due to do, how one planet compares with another, and what will happen if an experiment succeeds. Each move needs its own grammar. You met most of these forms in units 3 and 4; this lesson takes them into formal, factual writing, where examiners expect precision.
Read the bulletin, written for this course from NASA's mission pages. The underlined verbs and adjectives are the grammar of this lesson.
Mission News: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Artemis II splashed down on 10 April 2026, nine days after it left Kennedy Space Center. Its four astronauts flew around the Moon and back, and the flight tested the Orion capsule with a crew on board for the first time.
Next comes Artemis III, which is due to fly in 2027. It is set to stay in Earth orbit and test the systems that a Moon landing needs. If the tests go well, NASA will attempt a landing on Artemis IV.
Further out, Europa Clipper is expected to reach Jupiter in 2030. With its solar panels open, it is more than 30 metres wide, about as long as a basketball court. It is heading for the largest planet in the solar system, and for one of its icy moons. If the spacecraft finds the right chemistry beneath the ice, scientists may decide that Europa is one of the most promising places to search for life.
Definition
Terms in this lesson
Reports of past missions are told in the past simple, because each event happened at a finished time: in 1969, on 10 April, last year. Unit 3 showed when to choose it rather than the present perfect; here the focus is on getting the forms right.
| Rule for regular verbs | Examples | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Most verbs: add -ed | launch → launched; land → landed | |
| Verb ends in -e: add -d | explore → explored; retire → retired | no double e |
| Consonant + y: change y to i, add -ed | carry → carried; study → studied | but vowel + y keeps y: delay → delayed |
| One-syllable verb ending consonant-vowel-consonant: double the last letter | plan → planned; stop → stopped | keeps the short vowel sound |
| Longer verb, stress on the LAST syllable: double | refer → referred; occur → occurred | re-FER, oc-CUR |
| Longer verb, stress NOT on the last syllable: no doubling | orbit → orbited; visit → visited | OR-bit, VIS-it |
| British English doubles a final l after one vowel | travel → travelled; signal → signalled | American English: traveled |
Irregular verbs you will need for space writing: fly → flew · see → saw · leave → left · take → took · become → became · build → built · send → sent · spend → spent · find → found · begin → began · rise → rose · lead → led · set → set.
| Sound | When | Space examples |
|---|---|---|
| /ɪd/, an extra syllable | after a /t/ or /d/ sound | landed, orbited, tested, rotated, collided |
| /t/ | after other voiceless sounds: /p/, /k/, /s/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /f/ | docked, crossed, splashed, launched |
| /d/ | after vowels and other voiced sounds | explored, returned, planned, measured |
How to pronounce past tense endings, a Mini English Lesson, from the British Council's YouTube channel (about 3 minutes, 2023). Watch for the simple test the teacher gives for choosing /t/, /d/ or /ɪd/, then try it on <em>launched</em>, <em>orbited</em> and <em>explored</em>.
Unit 4 set out will, going to, the present continuous and the future perfect for personal plans. Official plans, schedules and forecasts use a more formal set, and each tells the reader how sure the writer is.
| Form | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| be due to + verb | scheduled for a stated time | Artemis III is due to fly in 2027. |
| be set to + verb | prepared and likely to happen soon (common in news) | The crew is set to return next week. |
| be expected to + verb | most people believe it will happen | The probe is expected to reach Jupiter in 2030. |
| be to + verb | an official arrangement or instruction (formal) | The astronauts are to meet the press on Monday. |
| be about to + verb | will happen in the next few moments | The rocket is about to lift off. |
| be likely / unlikely to + verb | probable / improbable | A crewed Mars landing is unlikely to happen this decade. |
Worked example
Choosing the future form that fits the evidence
Task: report each fact in one sentence, choosing a suitable future form.
Unit 3 practised far hillier, not nearly as and the more …, the more. Writing about planets adds patterns for ranking and for numbers. All the examples use NASA's planet table from lesson 2.
| Pattern | Example | Check it |
|---|---|---|
| ordinal + superlative | Saturn is the second-largest planet. | Only Jupiter is wider. |
| one of the + superlative + plural noun | Mars is one of the smallest planets. | never "one of the smallest planet" |
| by far + superlative | Venus is by far the hottest planet. | 464 °C against Mercury's 167 °C |
| superlative + in a place or group | the coldest planet in the solar system | use of with a number or a period: the coldest of the eight |
| fraction or multiple + as … as | Mars is about half as wide as the Earth. Jupiter is about eleven times as wide as the Earth. | 6,792 ÷ 12,756 ≈ 0.53; 142,984 ÷ 12,756 ≈ 11.2 |
| far: farther (further), the farthest (furthest) | Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun. | 4,515 million km |
| comparative + although, for a surprise | Venus is hotter than Mercury, although it is farther from the Sun. | the thick atmosphere of Venus traps heat |
Worked example
From numbers to sentences
Data: Uranus is 51,118 km across; Neptune 49,528 km; the Earth 12,756 km.
The basic pattern from unit 4 is If + present simple, will + verb, for a real possibility in the future. Science and safety writing stretches it in four useful ways.
| Variation | Example | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| a modal in the result: may, might, could, can, should | If the spacecraft finds salts, scientists may look for life. | less certainty, possibility or advice |
| an imperative in the result | If you see the space station tonight, take a photograph. | an instruction |
| present continuous or present perfect after if | If you are watching the launch tonight, set an alarm. If the crew have finished their checks, the capsule will undock. | an action in progress, or completed first |
| unless = if … not | Unless the weather improves, the launch will be postponed. | a condition that blocks the result |
If or when? Use when for something you know will happen, and if for something that may not. When the capsule re-enters the atmosphere, it will become extremely hot (it certainly will re-enter). If the weather is bad on launch day, the flight will be delayed (it may be fine).
Tip
The comma test. Put a comma after the if-clause when it comes first: If the sky is clear, we will see Jupiter. Leave the comma out when the result comes first: We will see Jupiter if the sky is clear. The same rule works for unless and when.
Warning
Many space words come from Greek and Latin, so their spelling does not follow how they sound. In the table, capitals show the stressed syllable. Notice how the stress moves when a suffix is added.
| Noun | Person | Adjective | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| as-TRON-o-my | as-TRON-o-mer | as-tro-NOM-i-cal | -ic, -ical: stress the syllable just before |
| PHO-to-graph | pho-TOG-ra-pher | pho-to-GRAPH-ic | the stress moves twice |
| ex-plo-RA-tion | ex-PLOR-er | ex-PLOR-a-to-ry | -tion: stress the syllable just before |
| AT-mos-phere | at-mos-PHER-ic | -ic again |
Words often misspelt: satellite (one t, two l's) · astronaut (not -nought) · atmosphere · weightlessness · galaxies (plural of galaxy) · microgravity · telescope · Uranus, Neptune · launch.
Latin adjectives: the Moon → lunar (a lunar module); the Sun → solar (solar panels); a star → stellar; the Earth → terrestrial, so a being from elsewhere is extraterrestrial.
Practice
Sources and credits
