January 2019
Is the NewSpace bubble about to burst?
.... Looking back once again to 1999, it seems quite relevant to note that the first major meltdown (the Iridium bankruptcy) came in August 1999, well before the bursting of the wider tech bubble. The OneWeb factory...
February 2020
Aeroshells – from LEO to Mars
... from the International Space Station (ISS). The EGG (re-Entry satellite with Gossamer aeroshell and GPS/Iridium) was designed by MAAC (Membrane Aeroshell for Atmospheric-entry Capsule) research group, established at the turn of the...
February 2021
Space archaeology - preserving our orbital heritage
... manoeuvring propellant is used up. In 2009, the lack of an avoidance manoeuvre resulted in a now infamous collision between the Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 satellites, resulting in over 2,800 extra fragments of orbital debris. Even material in the...
February 2022
An interplanetary transportation system
... of R&D positions in the space arena. In 1988 he joined Motorola to lead the team responsible for the development of the Iridium spacecraft bus. Pete received his PhD from the University of California and is a full Academician of the International...
May 2022
China’s international collaboration in space: an evolving approach from the Middle Kingdom
.... While the ensuing couple of years would see a few more US-made satellites launched on Chinese rockets (several Iridium satellites, for example), the dual failures in the mid-1990s signalled the beginning of the end of China...
January 2023
Clearing space junk from orbit
... initiated - was launched into the field of debris generated by the collision between an active American commercial satellite, Iridium 33, and a derelict Russian military satellite, Kosmos-2251, which had occurred a few months before. Both the...
