April 2025
Spacecraft anomalies and insurance losses
... concentrate their efforts. Indeed, the power subsystem may grow in importance as more satellites come to rely on electric propulsion for orbit raising. Meanwhile, antennas and beams already cause 40 percent of high-value, sometimes extremely large...
November 2025
Extra-terrestrial Skyring: managing space debris with an artificial planetary ring
...power as the main energy source for the power and propulsion systems. This implies either the use of solar sails... into space. Dr Long has published extensively on advanced propulsion, mission architectures and the future of space infrastructure. He...
10 March 2015
ARTES and the world of satcoms
... platform and the implementation of a mission in partnership with SES. Compared to chemical propulsion, full-electric propulsion weigh less, letting operators choose between a lighter spacecraft or one with more payload, even though it takes...
04 December 2017
After 37 years, Voyager 1 fires up dormant thrusters
... properly for as long as possible. Hoping to resolve the problem, the Voyager team assembled a group of propulsion experts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to study the situation. Their solution was to hand over the job...
26 June 2019
LightSail 2 gets ready to make its debut in space
... hoped the US government would invest in making LightSail technology a reality, but after settling on more traditional means of propulsion for their space programmes, the Planetary Society decided to tackle the project themselves. The Society’s first...
15 January 2021
Orion now ready for its Moon mission later this year
..., more than 50 avionics units, navigation and control systems and 29 kilometres (18 miles) of cables as part of the SLS’s propulsion systems. Propellant will also flow through the rocket’s two propellant tanks that can hold 700...
