As you’ve (hopefully) seen, on April 30th, SpaceX successfully launched its first crewed ship, which delivered the two astronauts safely to the international space station. It was the first piloted space flight from US soil in nearly nine years and the first new spacecraft in nearly 40 years. Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken said the…
On this day in Space history, May 19, 2000, the new space shuttle “glass cockpit” made its debut. The old Atlantis cockpit had four cathode-ray tube displays and 32 different gauges and indicators. Replacing these were eleven new flat-panel, full-color display screens. The new technology made it far easier to pilot the shuttle (plus, it…
The ExoMars programme comprises two missions: the first – the Trace Gas Orbiter – launched in 2016 while the second, comprising a rover and surface platform, is planned for 2022. Together they will address the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars. This is a joint program between the European Space Agency (ESA)…