NASA has announced the end of its DAWN mission to the asteroids. After being ordered, cancelled and then reinstated, DAWN was launched in 2007. And very successful it was too. Via the innovative use of solar-electric ion propulsion, the DAWN spacecraft visited the...
NASA have announced that after nine years in-orbit the Kepler space telescope has ceased its planet hunting mission on 30 October. Kepler has been in a low-fuel state for months however, it entered a “no-fuel-use” safe mode on 19 October, following a...
At 0043 GMT, 29 October 2018, the CFOSAT mission was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, PRC, by an Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) Long March 2C (CZ-2C) rocket into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). CFOSAT (Chinese-French Oceanography...
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...
While Japan’s Minerva II hopper rovers got there first, at IAC 2018 the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) was celebrating the landing success of the German-French Mobile Asteroid Surface SCouT (MASCOT) lander on 3 October. Having been dropped off by the Hayabusa 2 mother...
The Hubble Space Telescope fell into a safe mode after one of its remaining three fully operational gyros malfunctioned on 5 October 2018 preventing observations using the venerable astronomical spacecraft. The gyro concerned had been reportedly degrading for a year. ...
