24 November 2021
NASA successfully launches its DART mission
... in California. Launch time was 10:21 pm PST on 23 November (1:21 am 24 November). Shortly after launch the spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 second stage and was flying on its own. "Asteroid Dimorphos: we're coming for you!" NASA tweeted after...
March 2015
Small is the new big: why micro-satellites require new laws
...Space Exploration Technologies Corporation), a commercial launch provider created by Paypal’s founder Elon Musk, to land their heavy Falcon 9 first stage on a custom-build ocean platform3? By re-using the first stage, SpaceX wants to break the $1,000...
October 2015
Russian business: a long road to the stars for private space initiative
... investors. We consider ourselves to be highly ambitious. After all, SpaceX also began its journey with a small rocket, Falcon 1. The whole idea of super-light rockets is that today, small satellites are only being launched via...
October 2015
Baikonur, Kibo and beyond: Japan’s leading role in space
... the ISS programme, Japan has been devoting a lot of other resources to space exploration. The probe Hayabusa (‘Falcon’) landed on asteroid Itokawa and returned to Earth in June 2010 with asteroid samples seven years after the...
March 2016
Space industrialisation needs balanced legal and policy approach
... that its interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty permits exploration and extraction operations. Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 on 4 March 2016 Finally, and compounding the international difficulties of the SREU Act, Congress is uncertain as to which...
August 2016
Smallsat launch strategy
... allows smaller payloads to get access to launch vehicles that are oversized for their needs, such as the Falcon 9, Antares, Atlas V and Soyuz. Despite the wide range of launch opportunities available there is no one option that...
