Some years ago this column started its annual analysis called “The Great Space Race”. The idea was that while the original “Moon race” ended in 1969 when the USA beat the Soviet Union onto the lunar surface with its Apollo 11 human landing, a new one has...
ESA decided the winner of its fifth “Medium-class” Cosmic Vision competition on 10 June. Out of the two finalists the Venus-oriented “EnVision” orbiter won out over the gamma-ray burst studying “THESEUS”. The initial call for...
The first launch that took place on 29 April was conducted by Arianespace. This mission saw a Vega rocket successfully lift-off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 0150 GMT. The targeted orbit for the mission was Sun-synchronous orbit at 628 km (613 km for the rideshare...
ESA has selected SSTL to build and operate a 40 kg spacecraft for its HydroGNSS mission under its Scout programme. The €30 million HydroGNSS mission uses GNSS Reflectometry for hydrological measurements. In effect it uses signals from GPS and Galileo, as radar...
Nascent Scotland-based small launch providers Orbex and Skyrora,have received £8.5 million IN funding under the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Boost! initiative to develop their launch technologies and help bring their rockets to operational status. Orbex, an orbital...
For very different reasons, two major space agencies confirmed in January that they were losing their leaders with another declaring that its departing leader was about to leave early. First up was the departure of Jim Bridenstine, current Administrator of NASA....
