Conversations over dinner with my in-laws usually revolve around the latest cricket game or the best new dish sampled, but last week space affairs made an unexpected appearance between courses. With wide-eyed disbelief, my husband’s father asked if we had heard about...
NASA has formally selected SpaceX to produce a vehicle to allow a controlled entry of the International Space Station (ISS) and safe landing in the sea. The decision comes in tandem with the agency’s supporting role in commercial efforts to create smaller commercial...
A spacewalk attempt on the International Space Station (ISS) was dramatically cut short after a spacesuit water leak occurred inside the airlock. The Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA-90) started on 24 June with the two astronauts, Tracy Dyson and Mike Barratt, fully...
The first crewed test flight of Starliner finally lifted off from the ground following a series of stalled launch attempts. United Launch Alliance’s human-rated ATLAS V N22 (422) (RL10A-4-2) launch vehicle made its ascent from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 5 June at...
The Artemis Accords are a set of guidelines for “responsible behaviour in space” drafted by NASA and the US Department of State. As implied by its name, the Accords are specifically about NASA’s Artemis programme: the US effort to return people – including the first...
Keraunothnetophobia, as defined by some online dictionaries, is the fear of falling artificial satellites and other space objects. It is not to be confused with Keraunophobia, the fear of lightning strikes. Although often regarded as especially irrational,...
