The 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2019) was held in the US Capital Washington DC during October. One advantage of the event being held in a “mainline” capital city – rather than the much smaller city of Bremen last year and Adelaide the...
While General Election “purdah” curbed policy announcements and political appearances at the 2017 UK Space Conference in Manchester, hopes were high that this year’s conference in Newport, South Wales, would be better. And it was, but only in terms...
An investigation has revealed the cause of the Vega launch failure on flight VV15, which lost the Falcon Eye 1 satellite causing an insurance loss of circa US$416 million. The sudden “violent” anomaly occurred after what appeared to be a successful launch from the...
The post of UK Minister of State for Universities and Science, with its cabinet attendee rank, is an attractive position for up-and-coming politicians, not least because it is also in charge of the “sexy” subject of space – now seen as increasingly important to the...
In what resembled a space “game of chicken”, two satellites heading towards each other had to decide which would move first. After a warning from the US Space Command’s tracking system, the European Space Agency (ESA) was forced to move its Aeolus wind study...
The “first ever space crime” may have been committed by astronaut Anne McClean, who is accused of using the International Space Station’s (ISS) Wi-Fi to access illegally the bank account of her estranged female spouse Summer Worden. However, in this...
