October 2020
Superconductors - key to unlocking high power space missions
... in orbit are at the 20kW mark. With the approaching Lunar Gateway mission (50kW), and ESA’s Mars Sample Return mission (40kW), both scheduled for launch within the next six years, there is a clear movement towards...
July 2021
Collaboration and competition in lunar exploration
... a series of proposed ESA missions to the Moon, configured for different operations including cargo delivery, sample return or resource prospecting. Challenges Lunar exploration creates new potential commercial opportunities with diversified business...
February 2022
A manifesto for Europe in space
... orbit but also on the Moon and Mars? The other inspirator that we have highlighted is an icy moon sample-return mission to ask the fundamental question about life ‘out there’. Astrobiologists say that if there is life somewhere...
12 April 2016
Visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions
... Martian environment to recycle and print electronics and a system that harvests water in situ to enable low-cost sample return missions to icy moons through micro-landers. “The 2016 NIAC Phase I competition was fierce, as usual. All...
04 November 2016
China launches new heavy-lift rocket
..., which the country plans to have up and running by 2022. The rocket will also launch Chang'e 5, a robotic sample-return Moon mission, scheduled for 2017. Other Long March rockets, the Long March 6 and Long March...
04 July 2017
Rocket failure could delay China's Chang'e 5 mission
... riding on the success of the Long March 5 which was touted to be the rocket of choice to get China's Chang'e-5 sample-return mission to the Moon in November 2017. In addition, this latest flight was seen as a testbed for the ability...
