Overseen by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and US President-elect Donald Trump, the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Super Heavy/Starship combination lifted off at 2200 GMT on 19 November 2024 from its launch site at Boca Chica, near Brownsville, Texas. The flight was again...
On 12 September I was asked to do an interview with Al Jazeera English covering the Polaris Dawn spacewalk. What was meant to be a 5-minute overview of what the mission meant to the commercialisation of space ended up being a 45-minute, live play-by-play of the...
There were a number of launch and spacecraft orders this month. NASA is going to fund a Starship Space debris inspection mission launching in late 2026 In a blow for Europe’s (late and expensive) Ariane 6, Eutelsat signs multi-launch agreement for Japan’s...
Boeing confirmed that Starliner, its Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to the International Space Station (ISS), was safely recovered only – to its eternal embarrassment – minus the crew. Starliner undocked from the ISS at 2204 on 6 September. Using an airbag and...
There were a number of launch and spacecraft orders ranging from small to big this month. Smallsat launch services company SEOPS has agreed to buy space on future Intuitive Machines lunar missions to sell on to anyone who wants to send smallsats to the Moon. Intuitive...
My dad was a firefighter, just not the kind that puts out flames in buildings. Instead, he fought fires in forests, from the air. He ‘bombed’ fires with water and retardant, to save communities and wildlife. His crew used radar to track where lightning was striking,...
