January 2020
Collaborating to harness space innovation in healthcare
... use of funds, and better patient outcomes. X-ray optics deployed on star-mapping spacecraft, such as ESA’s XMM Newton mission launched in 1999, have been re-purposed by companies such as Adaptix allowing doctors to get a more comprehensive view...
May 2026
Mars exploration – the nuclear option
...low thrust. A typical ion thruster operates at around 0.5 to 2 newtons which is equivalent to the force imparted by a piece of paper...high velocities. The result is a combined thrust of two newtons and an incredibly low propellant mass flow rate of 0....
11 January 2019
Birth of a black hole possibly captured for first time
...ground-based telescopes including ESA’s Integral and XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR and Swift space telescopes ...we don’t completely understand,” says Norbert Schartel, ESA’s XMM-Newton project scientist. “One satellite, one instrument alone, would never...
October 2015
Taking AIM with ESA: proposing the first visit to a binary asteroid system
... is a simple one with fixed solar arrays, a fixed high-gain antenna and a bipropellant propulsion system with 24 10-Newton thrusters. Once understood, kinetic impact for asteroid deflection could feasibly be applied to other targets should the...
October 2015
Down to Earth: how to deorbit satellites and save money
... required post-mission. Since on-board propulsion systems only deliver small impulses in the order of magnitude of 1 Newton, the decommissioning manoeuvre can take a long time - up to 25 years - with additional operational, monitoring and liability...
August 2016
Are the days of innovation in global space over - or just beginning?
... social, economic or political phenomena but we do not have a one size fits all answer: in political science we have no Newton. Winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people is an incredibly important factor in the cultural imperialism that promotes...
