January 2019
Engineering six-hour solar eclipses with formation flying
... orbit will have a perigee of 600 km, an apogee of 60,500 km and an inclination of 59 degrees. After separation from the launcher, de-tumbling and Sun-acquisition, the solar panel will be deployed and commissioning performed. Only afterwards will ...
February 2019
The Space Elevator – an alternative path to space?
...Space Elevator,” in 48th International Astronautical Congress, Turin, Italy, 1997. 8 J. Pearson, “The orbital tower: a spacecraft launcher using the Earth’s rotational energy,” Acta Astronautica, vol. 2, pp. 785-799, 1975. 9 B. C. Edwards, “The Space...
July 2019
Lessons from our first race to the Moon
... but failed to find the necessary funding. He also persuaded the military to allow him to develop a heavy-lift launcher with various exotic military space missions in mind (anti-satellite weapons, for example) but this had...
January 2020
Apollo girl - camaraderie and discrimination in the Apollo era
... re-entered Earth’s atmosphere north of Puerto Rico. The problem was traced to a failed integrated circuit in the launcher’s pitch guidance module. Mariner 9, launched three weeks later, successfully completed the objectives of both spacecraft...
