At 2101 GMT on 27 November 2018, via UHF signals converted to X-band signals on two released Mars Cube One (MarCO A and B) data relay spacecraft and via the Deep Space Network on Earth, it was confirmed to NASA engineers, at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, that...
The Airbus DS subsidiary, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) which specialises in the manufacture of small satellites, has announced that it is designing a low cost 35kg lunar communications satellite mission called DoT-4. Targeted for a 2021 launch to the...
At 0145 GMT on 20 October 2018, an Ariane 5 ECA rocket successfully launched the Bepi-Columbo unmanned joint mission to Mercury. There are two main spacecraft plus a carrier spacecraft on the mission. The Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) can be regarded as the main...
The 69th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2018) was held in the city of Bremen near the coast of Northern Germany. The Congress is both a technical symposium, where engineers, scientists and even lawyers present their papers, and a place where the great space...
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been celebrating the successful landing of two small hopper rovers on the Ryugu asteroid on 20 September. The “mother ship” Hayabusa 2 was launched in December 2014 and, using electric thrusters and an Earth gravity...
Rockets-to-electric cars billionaire Elon Musk continued to mesmerise during September in his role as chief designer and overall boss of SpaceX. This was despite suffering much criticism and bad press over his ill-judged Twitter declarations – actions he would...
