March 2015
Chasing comets together: the Vega project in the USSR and beyond
... Phobos’ chemical and mineralogical composition from a low orbit distance of about 50 meters. ISE suggested the use of a laser gun, to shoot at Phobos’ surface in order to analyse the atoms and ions that would fly out, on board...
July 2016
Plasma Crystals - from space research to medicine on Earth and back to space again
... particles could be visualised using a CCD camera through a suitable optical system (the particles were ‘lit up’ with a laser) and their motion could be followed quite easily. Therefore physicists not only had a system at their fingertips...
August 2016
Our changing world and the mounting risk of a calamitous solar storm
... to address the asteroid threat. There are many programmes that range from directed energy beam systems to ‘Laser Bees’ to nuclear energy systems that the SMPAG could consider if presented with an actual threat to Earth from...
August 2016
Flying in formation - why China and the rest of the world should collaborate
... even need a new launch for completion. Joint experiments: it enables experiments relying on two stations, for example, laser communication and long baseline astronomical observation. And also, a ‘dual’ station makes it possible to do the same...
September 2016
Preparing the future: the right technology at the right time
... Mission will demonstrate a host of enabling technologies for future deep space missions, including advanced onboard autonomy, laser communications, inter-satellite links and low-gravity operations, while exploring the Didymos binary asteroid system...
January 2017
New oceans beckon for solar sail technology
... to use a relatively small sail, on the order of a few square metres in area, illuminated by a high power laser (around 60 GW) to accelerate a 1 gram-scale spacecraft to a significant percentage of the speed of light as a means of sending multiple...
