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 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 | Nov 10, 2014 | exploration, History, Seradata News
‘Interstellar’ is a 2014 sci-fi movie directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Michael Caine, plus a surprise appearance from another well known actor. The film’s relatively slow start is from the perspective...
by David Todd | Nov 3, 2014 | China, exploration
The Chang’e 5 T1 spacecraft returned to Earth on 31 October 2014. The re-entry capsule of Chang’e 5-T1 made a successful double skip re-entry and landed at 2242 GMT in the northern region of Inner Mongolia. On its eight-day mission,...
by David Todd | Oct 24, 2014 | China, exploration, Launches, Satellites
At 1800 GMT on 23 October 2014, a Chinese Long March 3C/G2 launch vehicle successfully took off from the Xichang launch site in China on its way to the Moon. Aboard was the Chang’e 5-T1 test spacecraft, a scaled down version of the Shen Zhou manned re-entry...
by David Todd | Sep 24, 2014 | exploration, India, Satellites, Science
India became only the fourth “nation” (after Soviet Union/Russia, USA and Japan) to send a probe to Mars using its own rocket, and the first to achieve this feat successfully on the first attempt. After making a 24 minute engine firing to brake its...
