September 2024
Liberating access to space
... use the C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, a tried and tested system capable of launching payloads up to 1000 kg to a variety of low Earth orbit (LEO) inclinations, as an ‘air-launch’ platform. With more than 270 aircraft in service globally, the...
April 2025
Spacecraft anomalies and insurance losses
... in this article, because most major insured spacecraft are in GEO. Low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation operators sometimes insure the launches of their spacecraft, but not for in-orbit risks and such is the number of their spacecraft that they...
March 2017
Growing plastic-producing bacteria in space
... is limited by very high cost and extreme risk. Experience in low Earth orbit (LEO) and on a handful of manned flights to the Moon... healthy. To support one astronaut for one year in Earth orbit requires around 8000 kg of supplies, excluding fuel. With...
April 2017
Mega-challenges for mega-constellations
... Several information technology and electronics companies have announced plans to provide such service via large constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) by 2018-2020. The proposed concepts foresee spanning a global, leak-proof network of inter-linked...
July 2018
The rise of interplanetary CubeSats
... the 6U (12 × 24 × 36 cm) the size of a brief-case. To date more than 800 nanosatellites have been launched into low Earth orbit (LEO), with a majority of launches after 2010 by new and emerging players including commercial startups, universities and...
August 2018
America’s ‘dream machine’
... in Dream Chaser, a reusable, multi-mission space utility vehicle capable of transporting payloads and people to and from low-Earth orbit and the ISS. Currently SNC is building a cargo version of the Dream Chaser. It will be the only commercial...
