April 2018
Transforming the launch market for small spacecraft
...present, a number of small commercial launchers are under development to meet the needs of the growing market of small spacecraft. Moreover, the number of existing and aspiring spaceports around the world looking to support commercial small satellite...
07 July 2016
Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft launched successfully from Baikonur
... voice and data to be relayed from the ground over 70% of the orbit through Russian satellites. Earlier series of spacecraft could only send or receive commands when passing over Russian ground stations. The MS-01 also has an improved...
27 April 2018
Another milestone for the SPACE DRONE™ spacecraft
... it is compact and lightweight. Its small form factor will help to limit the weight of the SPACE DRONE™ spacecraft to approximately 400kg, which in turn reduces launch costs. “The Arclight technology is ‘best in class’ and we are honoured...
March 2015
A boom and a (possible) bust in small spacecraft production
... drop in the overall cost of constellation support due to the short active performance time of each spacecraft. Thirdly, a large amount of spacecraft could serve as an instrument of risk hedging: the loss of a single craft does not have a significant...
November 2018
BepiColombo – a mission to explore Mercury
... named in honour of the Italian mathematician Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo, best known for his calculations on how to get a spacecraft into a resonant orbit with Mercury. His work contributed to the success of NASA’s Mariner 10 mission, the first...
January 2019
Visiting an asteroid to find out how life began
... Hayabusa2 spent 2.5 years after swing-by travelling in deep space towards Ryugu. Over such long journeys, the spacecraft is powered by ion engines. Ion engines are a form of electric propulsion that accelerates positively charged atoms of xenon...
