October 2018
Mining the Moon for fun and profit
... is indicated. This is where a spent Centaur upper stage was crashed to examine the spectral content of the ejecta plume and water content, which was measured in the 5-10 percent range. Water’s constituents, oxygen and hydrogen, when...
April 2019
On-board propulsion set to drive the smallsat revolution
... a neutraliser, the satellite would charge up negatively, eventually reaching such high values that the ions in the plume are attracted back to the satellite itself, resulting in a loss of thrust, and possible damage to the satellite due...
October 2019
Space-based cybersecurity challenges for NATO
... known as integrated threat warning and threat assessment (ITW/TA): US space-based infrared sensors detect the hot plumes of ballistic missile launches and communicate the information to service commanders. The overall missile defence capability also...
April 2020
Is space poised to take another giant leap?
... presence of such deposits. But it took Chandrayaan-1 to prove it, in 2008, by smashing a probe into the crater’s floor, releasing a plume of debris. Careful analysis over the following years eventually revealed that India’s first lunar mission had...
April 2020
Replacing hydrazine fuel with a greener alternative
... next few years. Swimmers enjoy themselves at Cocoa Beach, Florida, in April 2019, while a highly toxic orange plume rises from nearby Cape Canaveral after a failed test fire of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. If the cloud...
October 2020
Superconductors - key to unlocking high power space missions
The capabilities of future spacecraft will be driven by the electrical power available for them, but the generation of this power is only one part of the overall challenge facing the advancement of spacecraft capabilities. The question of how this ...
