April 2025
Spacecraft anomalies and insurance losses
...every anomaly and launch failure the underlying cause, occurrence phase of flight, and equipment-at-fault has been noted. ...’ in that it happened during the orbit raising/positioning phase. Depending on the policy, insurers will consider the nature...
May 2026
Mars exploration – the nuclear option
... to hinder progress, this builds steadily into a sizeable velocity. This makes NEP ideal for the cruise phase of interplanetary travel provided time is not a limiting factor. However, in the case of crewed missions, time is absolutely a constraint...
March 2015
SERC wants us all to get to grips with space junk
... space debris risk mitigation, in two parallel phases. In the first phase SERC will attempt to reduce near-term satellite... performance, of current optical debris tracking systems. This first phase of activity is information-based and aims to buy time...
June 2015
The day Philae landed: how a rough touchdown still made history at the Rosetta Mission
...date back to the mid-90s, when Philae’s study and design phase began. In particular the landing gear had to be designed in a... only effective solution. Fortunately it worked and the heating phase continued as planned. These unexpected troubles led to a...
October 2021
A US space strategy for 2050: shaping a domain on the cusp
... to 1957, humans could only imagine. Now, as the space domain transitions from an exploration and discovery phase to a commerce and security phase, it will be ever more important to ensure that the interests of the US, its allies and partners...
November 2021
Space insurance and the future of risk management
... launched to orbit in March 2021. Bespoke solutions The coverage offered by insurance policies addresses the four main phases of a satellite’s existence, thus providing manufacturing, pre-launch, launch and in-orbit coverage At the time of that first...
