April 2020
Evolutionary lessons for an interplanetary future
... radiation hit its surface at nearly full strength. All serious designs for Mars habitats include radiation shielding, but even a short amount of time spent on the surface - for farming, repairs, or exploration - would increase the...
August 2020
Scorpion – a study of the possible
..., a galley with wardroom, a work area and six individual crew cabins. The external walls have plastic shielding sufficient to protect the crew from solar flares. This protection together with the artificial gravity make...
February 2021
Space archaeology - preserving our orbital heritage
..., as shown by craters observed in Space Shuttle windows. Whilst larger assets such as the ISS have Whipple shielding to provide a measure of protection from debris impacts and other hazards such as micrometeorite strikes, the majority of other...
June 2021
Is NewSpace really so new?
...three to five years. So, R&D costs had to be minimised and satellites were developed with low redundancy and minimum shielding, using a maximum of commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) components. Launch costs were reduced by launching as secondary payloads...
January 2022
Earth - no longer humanity’s only home
... Space Shuttle. In 2012, the Curiosity rover’s ‘Seven Minutes of Terror’ to the Martian surface, which included a heat shield, parachutes and skycrane, maxed out our current ability to land something on the surface of Mars – the one...
February 2022
Building space-qualified detector chips
... Lynred) as a development engineer in charge of development and optimisation of infrared detectors, thermal and optical shielding. In 2002, he started working as a development programme manager, in particular in space applications. In 2007, he became...
