April 2019
The changing economics of space
... the end of their lives with a suite of operational hardware on-board that it still functioning. It’s just that the spacecraft has run out of fuel and can’t be fully controlled. Representation of a mega constellation around Earth. Enabling missions...
October 2020
Superconductors - key to unlocking high power space missions
... mass, of such cables increases exponentially, as does the amount of waste heat generated. In the case of nuclear-powered spacecraft, long distances are necessitated due to safety considerations, and the mass of conventional systems becomes even more...
November 2016
Rosetta - an eventful cruise phase
...somewhere a leak of the helium gas on-board the spacecraft. The spacecraft was safe at this time, as the potential ..., to analysing, planning and testing a configuration of the spacecraft that would reduce the active units to the absolutely essential ...
January 2017
New oceans beckon for solar sail technology
... National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has expressed interest in placing a long-duration solar storm warning spacecraft closer to the Sun, yet always between the Earth and Sun, so as to enable rapid warning of an impending solar...
March 2017
Rosetta – outstanding climax to pioneering mission
...a planned ‘excursion’ to study the coma structure at distances up to 1500 km from the nucleus, we started to gradually decrease the spacecraft distance to the surface, and by the end of 2015 we were back to closed orbits. This explained the 18-minute...
June 2017
Bepi-Colombo will unveil Mercury’s secrets
... of Mercury. It was therefore necessary to devise an intricate design of curved mirrors that will discard heat generated by the spacecraft, while simultaneously deflecting the heat coming from the planet. Onwards and upwards Although many issues...
