June 2015
Preventing pilot spatial disorientation
... Carolina, leaving all lights behind. Along with the lights went any reference to the world around me. As I ascended, I searched for a horizontal landmark. Lights on the horizon. A road. River. Anything. The mountainous terrain and the...
October 2015
Japan’s H-IIA rocket: beautiful, accurate, and on-time
... north. The H-IIA places the satellite in a plane forming a 30-degree angle (inclination) relative to the equator. When ascending to its apogee, a satellite launched by the H-IIA must switch from an orbital plane to an equatorial plane. To achieve...
May 2017
India confirms commercial launch intent
... of US President Donald Trump! So the days ahead will see 104 and counting. ISRO is most definitely in the ascendency and promises to be true ambassador for ‘brand India’ in the months and years ahead. About the author...
May 2017
Spaceplane rationale - a new way of thinking
...?’ About the author David Ashford is Managing Director of Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd, an innovative small company developing the Ascender spaceplane. He was involved in Concorde, the Skylark sounding rocket, and missile and electronic warfare projects...
August 2018
Measuring the pulse of Mars
... in the geologic evolution of the red planet. Without plate tectonics to recycle its surface, heat from Mars ascended from below to erupt as massive volcanoes and extensive lava fields that cover large portions of the martian...
October 2018
Mining the Moon for fun and profit
... NASA is to return humans to the Moon - as is the current direction from the administration - it will need propellant to ascend from the lunar surface. Absent a lunar source of propellant, NASA’s alternative would be to transport the propellant from...
