August 2019
Lessons from the Sun
... 14.6 hours. The towering trianglular shape of the McMath-Pierce solar telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA. Hints of rogue ... particles pummelled Earth’s polar ozone layer and spacecraft solar panels alike, and human intervention was required to keep ...
April 2020
Plasma Clipper - opening the age of sail, in space travel
... (propellant) they carry on board. Electric rockets use solar panels or a nuclear reactor to power the expulsion of the...be able to utilise some of it to go anywhere in the solar system in an outward direction. Plasma magnetic sail based on rotating...
07 February 2020
ESA's Solar Orbiter mission set to launch on 10 February
...is counting down the hours to the launch of their Solar Orbiter mission. Scheduled for launch Monday 10 February 04:03 ... when the spacecraft is programmed to ‘wake up’ and its solar panels and instrument booms are deployed. The boom, which measures ...
April 2025
Spacecraft anomalies and insurance losses
... their service without needing in-orbit insurance. Artist’s concept of the Intelsat 29e satellite with antennas and solar panels unfurled. Explosive failure in April 2019 resulted in the total loss of the spacecraft. Orbital launch dataset Typically...
November 2019
The economic promise of space
...space solar power. Collecting solar power on Earth has many drawbacks and despite all the promising innovation in solar panels and...technological feasibility of, and the growing economic case for, Solar Power Satellites (SPS). Recent studies by NASA, ...
May 2020
Developing a commercial market for small sample return
... return vehicle returning from the Moon. The illustration shows it’s high power configuration, with extra deployable solar panels and additional manoeuvering thrusters. Enabling technologies Several key technologies have emerged over the past decade...
