NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security – Regolith EXplorer) space probe successfully descended, matched the asteroid Bennu’s rotational speed and landed on it on 20 October. The manoeuvre was a touch-and-go...
SpaceX supremo and founder Elon Musk took time out from his Tesla automotive activities to lay out his plans for the Starship via a web interview at the Mars Society’s online conference on 16 October. Musk led off by saying that for long-term, long-range human...
The European Space Agency (ESA) took the opportunity at the International Astronautical Congress IAC 2020 (Online/Cyberspace edition) to announce contracts related to exploration. First out of the bag was the €491 million construction contract awarded to Airbus...
While the Chinese Chang’e 4 programme’s design team bathed in the success of winning their gong from the IAC (Wu Wieren, Yu Dengyun and Sun Zezhou, were awarded the prestigious IAC’s World Space Award medal), the highlight lecture presented by Dr. Yu...
With only about a month to go to the US Presidential Election on 3 November, we assess President Donald J. Trump’s successes and failures. While he has made serious – sometimes disastrous – errors, Trump’s opponents and detractors may not like it, but he was not wrong...
NASA has published its Project Artemis plan to return crew, including female astronauts, to the Moon’s surface by the Trump Administration’s target date of 2024. Under the plan, Artemis I will be a one-month unmanned mission in 2021 and Artemis II will be a crewed...
