While drones are commonplace on Earth, where amateur versions are often used as toys, their use on other planets is still being explored. It is clear that the technology will provide significant benefits. Drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), for example, can be...
Mars is now the red planet in more than one way: on 14 May, China successfully landed its Zhurong rover in a dune field in Utopia Planitia. This is significant because it marks China as the third nation to land a spacecraft on Mars, and only the second to make a...
Every August, Seradata does an analysis of which nation is leading the “human” space race – or rather races – to return humans to the Moon and put them on the surface of Mars. This year progress has become clearer and the USA is very much the leading contender in both...
Airbus DS, France, has been selected to build the Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), part of the, NASA/ESA, Mars Sample Return project. The ERO will transport recovered Martian rock samples – some of which will be prepared by the recently launched Perseverance rover...
Lifting-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, a ULA Atlas V 541 rocket has carried the Mars 2020 mission into orbit. The launch occurred at 1150 GMT, 30 July 2020. The payload was placed into a “parking” low Earth orbit before the rocket’s Centaur...
