by David Todd | Jan 15, 2016 | ESA, History, International Space Station, NASA
Major Tim Peake has become the first British astronaut to go out into space on a spacewalk as he stepped out of the air lock along with US NASA astronaut, Tim Kopra, who was on his third spacewalk. The EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), which began at 1255 GMT (hatch...
by David Todd | Jan 15, 2016 | ESA, exploration, Science
The little German-designed Philae minilab lander, which stole the headlines in November 2014 when it made a bouncing landing onto the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, is thought to have died of “hypothermia”. The lander, which originally cadged a lift to...
by David Todd | Jan 15, 2016 | commercial launch services, ESA, International Space Station, NASA, SpaceX
NASA has awarded three Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2) contracts worth several billion dollars each to Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) between 2019 to 2024. The maximum potential value of all...
by David Todd | Jan 4, 2016 | commercial launch services, ESA, NASA, Science
ESA (The European Space Agency) and Arianespace formally announced on 17 December 2015 that the launch services contract for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) had been signed. The spacecraft will be orbited by an Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle from the Guiana Space...
by David Todd | Dec 17, 2015 | ESA, Launches, Satellites
A pair of constellation navigation satellites were launched on their way to their final Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) position by a Soyuz ST-B/Fregat MT launch vehicle from the Sinnamary launch site, near Kourou in French Guiana. The launch of Galileo FOC FM-07...
by David Todd | Dec 16, 2015 | ESA, Satellites, Science
Two environmental monitoring radar satellites, Sentinel-1C and Sentinel -1D, will be manufactured by Thales Alenia Space after a construction order was formally awarded to the firm by the European Space Agency. The contracts are valued at €402 million...
