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Home / News / Tags / spacecraft
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Stories about: spacecraft |
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The European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft Rosetta is currently en route to meet up with the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on the fringes of the solar system. The two are scheduled to first see each other in 2014. The probe was launched back in 2004, and it has completed about 4,500 million kilometers of its 7,... |
14 November 2009
02:26 GMT |
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The vast distances in the Universe constitute the main obstacles in devising and sending out space missions to other stars or planetary systems. Until mankind would have a permanent base on the Moon, from where to send out space explorers, we are doomed to have to launch all probes on rockets that burn massive amount... |
12 November 2009
02:57 GMT |
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The Planetary Society has again announced plans of testing a solar sail prototype, which it hopes to have built in a spacecraft, and then launched by the end of next year. The mission would essentially attempt to harness the power of solar winds for propulsion, a feat that has been advertised for a long time, but tha... |
11 November 2009
01:55 GMT |
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The Hayabusa space mission, which literally translates into peregrine falcon, is a flight of the Japanese space agency (JAXA), which aimed at landing and retrieving soil samples from the near-Earth asteroid (NEO) 25143 Itokawa. The goal of the mission was to study the potentially dangerous object thoroughly, and then... |
11 November 2009
01:43 GMT |
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Today, at 1422 GMT, a new International Space Station (ISS) module, named the Mini-Research Module 2, will take off from the RosCosmos-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. The MRM2 is also called Poisk, which is the Russian word for “explore.” The craft will take off from the Central Asian spacepo... |
10 November 2009
02:55 GMT |
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At this point, a number of scientific instruments orbits the planet, collecting data about its temperatures and their trends. Designed and built by an international team of experts, led by scientists at the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom, the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) instruments are mana... |
22 October 2009
18:51 GMT |
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Recently, NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft performed its third and final flyby of the innermost planet in our solar system. The flight was meant to cover the knowledge gaps left behind by the other two flybys, and to finish mapping the remainder of the pl... |
22 October 2009
04:32 GMT |
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The fly-by technique is a very common one for spacecraft, as they depart from the Earth to other destinations inside the solar system, or beyond. In order to limit the amount of fuel these probes carry, they are set on trajectories that bring them very close to a planet or other celestial body, but without being capt... |
13 October 2009
05:42 GMT |
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In spite of the fact that the 27-kilometer-long Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built in order to further our understanding of particle physics, and also to discover the elusive Higgs boson, engineers and physicists are also planning other uses for it. In the near future, one such purpose may be to test the validity ... |
8 October 2009
02:50 GMT |
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With the advent of the Space Age, numerous spacecraft have been sent up to orbit over the years. Some of them are still functioning to this day, relaying back useful information to their control stations on Earth. But many of them are slowly decaying, out of commission, and are littering precious orbital paths, which... |
7 October 2009
09:47 GMT |
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The probes, orbiters and rovers that currently explore the recesses of the solar system and beyond are only crude efforts in mankind's quest to explore the Universe. These robots currently come at very high costs, are relatively fragile, and only carry limited amounts of scientific equipment. But, in the future,... |
2 October 2009
17:01 GMT |
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Yesterday, NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging spacecraft (MESSENGER) did its third and final flyby of Mercury, before its 2011 orbital insertion date. During the approach, areas of the planet that had never before been imaged were analyzed, but the success of the mission was dimi... |
1 October 2009
03:23 GMT |
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An asteroid impact would be so devastating to our planet, that the survival of life itself on it would be jeopardized. Although, as far as we know now, the threat of that happening in the short term is fairly small, British experts from the Stevenage space company EADS Atrium are currently working on a new spacecraft... |
31 August 2009
10:05 GMT |
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The American space agency NASA announced a few days ago that a new flight test would be taking place today, featuring the first inflatable reentry spacecraft. Its mission will be to deploy when a carrier enters the Earth or the Martian atmosphere, and to act as a heat shield and aerodynamic brake. The inflatable conc... |
17 August 2009
05:56 GMT |
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At the Henry T. Nagamatsu Laboratory of Hypersonics and Aerothermodynamics at the IEAv-CTA, in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, new types of rocket-propulsion systems are currently underway. The most advanced do not rely on chemical reactions, such as burning liquid oxygen and hydrogen, but on harnessing the power of las... |
31 July 2009
04:57 GMT |
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Experts at the Houston-based University of Texas Health Science Center (HSC) will have the honor of having their nano-fluidics experiments being ferried to orbit aboard NASA's delivery systems. The deal states that SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft, blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center, a part ... |
12 May 2009
10:15 GMT |
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Early on Monday, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suffered an unexpected glitch and was forced to reboot its primary computer system and enter safe mode, mission scientists announced late on Wednesday. The malfunction means that further scientific observations are impossible until the problem is found and fixe... |
27 February 2009
02:12 GMT |
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As part of its ambitious project, China announced a couple of years ago that it planned to send a lunar exploration vehicle on Earth's natural satellite by 2012, a deadline that draws nearer and nearer with each passing day. A failure to respect it would mean disgrace, so Beijing authorities are currently organi... |
25 February 2009
06:28 GMT |
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ESA is planning big for the next decade, its recent actions show. It envisions and supports the construction of a groundbreaking project meant to yield a spacecraft capable of behaving both as a jet airplane and as a rocket. Basically, the new system will be capable of lift-of from an airfield, deliver up to 12 tonne... |
20 February 2009
05:22 GMT |
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was rolled out on Wednesday from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on a trip scheduled to last two days. After it was completed, the spacecraft was tested for more than two months in a thermal va... |
12 February 2009
04:53 GMT |
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Who would have thought just a few decades ago that space flight would be ramping up so abruptly? We're talking about sending probes and landers anywhere in the solar system and far beyond, or even going to the Moon or Mars. And with things evolving at such a fast pace, who can tell what we'll be able to do ... |
18 December 2008
03:28 GMT |
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All flying vehicles share a common problem – fuel. Their flight duration ability is severely limited by the amount of fuel they can carry, which forces designers to resort to annoying compromises in order to develop craft models with reduced consumption that have enough room for giant fuel reservoirs. But this ... |
10 December 2008
04:39 GMT |
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The veil that has been covering the activities performed by Blue Origin, the company created by Jeffrey Preston Bezos, the founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com, has been lifted. Underneath, it seems there was assiduous work for the development of the spacecraft called Ne... |
9 December 2008
10:20 GMT |
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A California-based company called XCOR Aerospace is set to take people for a flight into space for as low as $95,000, less than half the price demanded by their competitors from Virgin Galactic. Although the conditions are not as good, the price and the view are definitely worth it. The tests will begin in 2010 and t... |
3 December 2008
14:31 GMT |
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Finally, after several delays, the spaceship Endeavour and its crew touched down safely on a temporary runway in California, instead of the original designated place, which was regularly used – the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The detour was resorted to due to the poor weather conditions in Florida, where s... |
1 December 2008
14:01 GMT |
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An updated version of a Russian cargo spacecraft from the Progress series is making its way towards the International Space Station, where it will provide the astronauts with fresh supplies. The Progress 31 unmanned space freighter was reported by NASA officials to have had some troubles with one of the few antennas ... |
27 November 2008
10:36 GMT |
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At long last, the biggest planet in our solar system is given the proper attention again, after about 13 years. Following a long series of delays and cancellations (both in this case and for previous suggested missions), NASA has finally decided to send an orbiter to Jupiter. The probe which has made it is called Jun... |
25 November 2008
11:11 GMT |
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This is the third article related to the priority of the Moon over Mars and vice versa, as the next target of the space program. First, it was clear that the Moon would provide a good place to start, since it's the closest and more accessible cosmic body that we can get to, and could also give astronauts a ... |
19 November 2008
09:32 GMT |
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At last, weather conditions seem to have provided a clear launch for the Endeavour spacecraft, which carries a crew of 7 to the International Space Station. As a result, the 2 million-kilogram heavy shuttle blasted off into the sky at 1955 EST (0055 GMT), providing a special show for the watchers who were presen... |
15 November 2008
04:09 GMT |
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It appears that NASA has been the victim of a fraud that could have caused the loss of a spacecraft and of its crew. A 60-year-old man named Richard Harmon, working at Cornerstone Machining Inc., close to Houston, Texas, was involved in the development of a complicated part for a NASA space shuttle, called a passive ... |
14 November 2008
10:55 GMT |
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While one of our previous articles stated the exact opposite of what you’ve just read, now, NASA is advised otherwise by experts from the Planetary Society (a team of space experts and enthusiasts from more than 125 countries). In a recent report, they claim that the plans made by president Bush, which saw a ma... |
14 November 2008
09:16 GMT |
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When thinking of the International Space Station, it may appear to be more of an American endeavor, given that the largest part of the missions that involve it are conducted by the US, but this is actually not entirely true. Still, the European Space Agency (ESA), a major contributor to the ISS project throughout it... |
14 November 2008
08:36 GMT |
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Following a recent invitation-only conference held at its own headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and attended by nearly 50 experts from different fields and institutions, the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) company hopes to find enough important customers interested in purchasing their DragonLab reusable ... |
10 November 2008
09:23 GMT |
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The number of space objects that humans have created has grown a lot within the recent decades and will be exponentially increasing in the future. With all the planets and celestial phenomena that should be explored and observed, space missions (such as satellites and stations) are in bloom. Also, as overdue or unnee... |
10 November 2008
04:03 GMT |
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The first Indian unmanned craft ever, Chandrayaan-1, has been successfully circling the Moon in a steady orbit for about two days. During the next four days, it will perform further maneuvers in order to reduce the orbit up to approximately 100 km distance from the Earth's natural satellite. Its engines were fir... |
10 November 2008
02:56 GMT |
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Obviously and admittedly inspired by the Training Remotes concept (the small droid spheres that helped Luke Skywalker perfect his lightsaber skills) from Star Wars, three autonomous spheres are roaming around the International Space Station. They're even called SPHERES, but not because of an off-moment in terms... |
8 November 2008
05:06 GMT |
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Chandrayaan-1, the spacecraft launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on October 22, has successfully performed the orbit-raising maneuver that set it on track for the Moon, a week after it managed, upon testing its main camera (Terrain Mapping Camera), to send its first pictures back to Earth. This... |
6 November 2008
07:13 GMT |
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Another idea coming from the SF culture is moving in the direction of becoming a reality: spaceship shields. However, as such, they would not protect the ships against evil alien races, but against a more common natural phenomenon. It is a known fact that space weather – the radiation coming from Sun and from ... |
4 November 2008
09:57 GMT |
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The crew of seven astronauts that will make the trip to the International Space Station in two weeks' time went aboard the US space shuttle Endeavour two days ago, on October 29th, for their first practice run. The series of training sessions they have started is aimed at preparing them for the flight and for th... |
31 October 2008
10:31 GMT |
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NASA's latest version of moon craft, the very one who put its original designer, Michael Griffin, in the position of NASA administrator 3 years ago, has encountered new glitches. This would mean millions of dollars over the budget and a considerable lag in terms of deadline, but NASA is prepared to do anything ... |
29 October 2008
04:09 GMT |
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The next mission to the Moon is going to be NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is scheduled for launch, if all goes well, in about half a year, on April 24, 2009, aboard an Atlas V rocket. Currently, it is subject to tests that replicate the conditions it will face while orbiting the Moon. The one ... |
25 October 2008
06:01 GMT |
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Recently, about 1,500 pages containing 19 files on UFO and alien sightings and encounters were released by the Ministry of Defense as a sequel to a similar action in May. Still, those who hoped to finally bask in the light that these would shed on the controversial topic were bitterly disappointed. Not only did the ... |
23 October 2008
06:35 GMT |
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India doesn't want to be overshadowed by its Chinese neighbors, who have just performed their first spacewalk. That's why it is striving to impose itself as a world power, despite the fact that it is a country still haunted by poverty, as well as torn by violent manifestations on religious and ethnic groun... |
22 October 2008
04:30 GMT |
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A recent investigation by British UFO expert Philip Mantle in Roswell, New Mexico - the most known supposed crash site of an unidentified flying object, which drew worldwide attention in 1947 - is supposed to shed new light on the alien visiting phenomenon.The UFO topic is among the most controversial ones ... |
9 October 2008
05:24 GMT |
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Enceladus, the geyser moon of Saturn, will be passed by twice this October, first on the 9th and a second time on the 31st, in an attempt to prove the hypothetical existence of an ocean hiding on its surface. The first flyby will see Cassini performing the closest such maneuver from the surface of any of Saturn&... |
8 October 2008
05:24 GMT |
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American officials still find it hard to believe that the American space program will grind to a painful halt in 2010, with the retirement of the shuttle fleet. However, at this point, there is little anyone can do on the matter, as the aging fleet can no longer be considered safe to fly to orbit beyond that point. N... |
7 October 2008
04:43 GMT |
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The RHESSI spacecraft provided specialists with enough accurate data based on which they were finally able to calculate far more precisely the exact roundness of our solar system's star. These measurements indicated that the Sun is not a perfectly round body, instead they revealed the small differences between t... |
3 October 2008
10:58 GMT |
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On October 6, NASA's Messenger spacecraft will flyby Mercury for the fifth time in history. Equipped with $8.7 million worth of sensors, the probe will photograph most of the planet's surface, descending to an altitude of approximately 124 miles. This will be the second time that Messenger passes by Me... |
1 October 2008
05:03 GMT |
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Many space missions today cannot be carried out mostly because the involved spacecrafts would have to fly in a precise formation, such as NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission or the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, which is supposed to detect distortions in the matter of space-time known as gravitational ... |
7 May 2008
03:11 GMT |
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Losing touch with a space ship at landing can cause serious issues that can even result in losing the spacecraft. Hardware components are more likely to deteriorate while in space, probably because they are more exposed to cosmic radiation than inside Earth's atmosphere. The situation is increasingly complicated... |
29 April 2008
09:59 GMT |
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