April 2020
Is space poised to take another giant leap?
... technologies to emerge are two new, privately-funded, reusable human-rated spacecraft – Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon - designed to carry crew to low Earth orbit (LEO). But these commercial enterprises are looking to carry more...
April 2020
Reviving Russia’s space programme
... end of 2019. The retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, and American slowness in making replacement Starliner and Dragon spacecraft flightworthy, meant a ten-year stream of dollars for Russia from delivering astronauts to the ISS. Moreover...
April 2020
Replacing hydrazine fuel with a greener alternative
... a highly toxic orange plume rises from nearby Cape Canaveral after a failed test fire of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. If the cloud had reached people, it would have potentially caused severe burns on contact. (Jim Waymer...
May 2020
Space for Art – The magnificent beauty of spaceflight
... and successfully create something so beautiful and complex. But we did - and we continue to do so! SpaceX Falcon 9 Crew Dragon abort test – January 2020 As we work to bring new US spacecraft into operation, sometimes we have to carry out extreme...
July 2020
Covid-19 infects global space community
... of Nanoracks in returning “critical science” payloads to its customers across the US, following the return of the SpaceX-20 Dragon capsule from the ISS in April. The company characterised the “big difference” as “instead of going to university and...
July 2020
Pandemic in space – are we ready?
... occurring in or originating from space. Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken familiarise themselves with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, prior to the Demo-2 flight test. Space law and health governance The United Nations space law...
