The Presidential directive to put humans on the Moon by the end of 2024 is concentrating the mind of NASA’s leadership. To some extent NASA’s hands have been bound by past equipment choices with the ever-present problem of having very limited funds to enact such a...
While US Vice President Mike Pence’s nationalistic speech managed to annoy the international audience at the 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Washington D.C., the Amazon and Blue Origin supremo had a much better reception. As part of an on...
Having received a NASA CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) contract in May worth US$77 million to carry up five payloads to the lunar surface, the Nova-C commercial lunar lander’s operator has moved quickly to secure its passage to the Moon. It has signed...
Controllers at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) were licking their wounds after its unmanned landing attempt on the Moon ended in failure – and with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, looking on. The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter/Vikram Lander/Pragram Rover...
Every August Seradata does its usual analysis of the “runners and riders” in “The Great Space Race” between the major space nations. Here we judge each space programme on the basis of technological ability, financial and other resources, national will and, most...
India’s Chandrayaan 2 achieved a make-or-break 29 minute burn to brake itself into lunar orbit on 20 August, after slowly raising its orbit and injecting itself in to a Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) orbit on 13 August. The burn was made at 0332 GMT on 20 August....