by David Todd | Nov 18, 2014 | ESA, exploration, NASA, SLS
Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) has been formally awarded a contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) worth €390 million to construct the service module for the NASA manned space capsule Orion. The service module will provide propulsion, power supply, thermal...
by David Todd | Nov 14, 2014 | ESA, On a Lighter Note, Seradata News
After the ESA Philae lander landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to great plaudits, there was great surprise when Dr Matt Taylor, lead scientist on the successful Rosetta-Philae mission, showed the world that he already had artwork showing the successfully...
by David Todd | Nov 12, 2014 | ESA, exploration, Seradata News
The European Space Agency’s small Philae lander, which had been carried by the Rosetta spacecraft to the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has successfully landed. Separation from its mother craft was confirmed at ESA’s Space Operation Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt,...
by David Todd | Oct 21, 2014 | Commercial human spaceflight, ESA, JAXA, NASA
Commercial manned spaceflight was especially emphasised at IAC 2014, and it even got its own plenary session. Alexander Derechin, of RSC Energia, noted in his paper IAC 2014 B3.2.1 that as prices are set to fall, the human commercial spaceflight market would...
by David Todd | Oct 21, 2014 | ESA, History, India, JAXA, NASA, Seradata News
While the heads of several space agencies delivered the usual platitudes about international cooperation at the IAC 2014, the “missing elephants in the room”, were China and Russia. So was this an indication that international space cooperation would, in future, be...
by David Todd | Oct 21, 2014 | ESA, Satellites, Science, Seradata News
The satellite maker, Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) has been awarded a formal contract to design and build six second generation Meteorological Operational (MetOp-SG) satellites. The contract is worth €1.3 billion. The forerunner of Airbus DS, Astrium, had...
