December 2018
Coffee roasting in space
... projects - lunar and Mars rovers, planetary probes and human exploration aboard the International Space Station (ISS) - have become commonplace. Now, at the dawn of the NewSpace era, we are starting to see innovative new business opportunities, such...
January 2019
Preparing for a robotic revolution in Earth orbit
... on Mars, but those have significant differences from robots that remain in orbit.) The Canadarm used on the US Space Shuttle and Canadarm2 on the International Space Station (ISS) are well known. But those are officially ‘manipulators’ rather than...
June 2019
Does the speed of light change with time?
... enough to overturn our current understanding of the universe? In a year’s time the Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) is scheduled to fly aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS). The goal of ACES, put simply...
April 2020
Satellite mega-constellations pose threat to ground-based astronomy
... have enjoyed tracking the satellites and the International Space Station (ISS), and registering the impressive flashes caused by the older Iridium satellites. Typical smallsats in a mega constellation. The European Space Agency’s Space Debris Office...
July 2020
Pandemic in space – are we ready?
...on 17 April 2020, following her 200-day mission on the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir described the situation unfolding on the planet as “quite surreal”. Indeed the world had changed significantly during her relatively short...
May 2021
In-situ propellant design for Mars ascent vehicles
.... Currently, we are living in the Earth-dependent era of space exploration, which uses assets such as the International Space Station (ISS). Various experiments have been conducted onboard the ISS to understand the effects of microgravity, such...
