On October 11th, 1971, the worlds first Space Station, Salyut 1, burned up on reentry over the Pacific ocean after just 175 days in orbit, and 2 crewed missions to the station. It was the first in a long series of Salyut Stations, a design heritage that would span all the way to the Mir […]
The story of Sputnik 1 is far more than just a simple satellite going into orbit. When Sputnik 1 launched in October of 1957, the United States was caught by absolute surprise. How could the Soviets beat the Americans into putting up an artificial Satellite? What did this mean they could do next? What would […]
It was 59 years ago today that the world entered the Space Age. On the desert steppes of Soviet Kazakhstan, early in the morning of October 5th (local time October 4th here in the United States) 1957, deep within a missile test range, an R-7 missile took flight. This wouldn’t be a normal flight for […]
In 1966, as Project Gemini was wrapping up, Project Apollo was starting to, quite literally, get off the ground – Complete Apollo CSM’s began unmanned flights, and the Lunar Module, while delayed quite a bit, was still starting to become a real machine. Everything was looking to be progressing smoothly before the Apollo 1 fire […]
Launched in 1977, the twin Voyager 1 and 2 probes were sent out on missions to observe Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, as well as their moons, rings, and anything else they could discover on their journeys out of the solar system. Voyager 1 was sent on a more specialized mission for only Jupiter and […]
When the United States Air Force began its space reconnaissance programs in the 1960’s, it needed a way to stabilize its camera and signal interception payloads on orbit. Under normal circumstances of the day, satellites were either spin stabilized, or left to drift along on their orbit, maybe, if things were working right, the satellite […]
The European Space Agencies Rosetta mission ended today, September 30th, with the crash landing of the Rosetta spacecraft on comet 67P, its primary target over its 12 year mission. Even though its original launch was delayed resulting in a change of target, and its secondary payload, the Philae lander, had a much shorter mission than […]
If you’re going to the moon, you’re going to need a rocket. A big one. Actually, scratch that, you’re going to need several rockets of varying types, uses, and fuels. This film, produced during the late stages of the design and testing of the rocket systems of the Saturn V and the Apollo Command, Service, […]
Going along with the last articles theme of hypergolic fuels, with a focus on the Gemini spacecraft, we have this 1964 film, from the very early days of Gemini, explaining the propulsion systems and operation of the maneuviring capabilities of the Gemini. Gemini was the first manned spacecraft capable of making major orbital trajectory changes, […]
It’s well known that I am a massive fan of the Titan missile, and its derived space boosters – the Titan II GLV, the Titan-III and Titan-IV booster families. These launch systems, based upon the Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, used a very special type of fuel and oxidizer type that was storeable at room […]
We have another exciting Atlas V launch today, this time from Vandenburg Air Force Base off the East coast of the United States! This launch will be the baseline Atlas V, the “401” configuration, no side boosters and a single engine centaur stage. The payload, the Worldview-4 commercial Earth observations Satellite, will be launched into […]
YouTube user Thunderf00t, a scientist who also happens to make videos about a wide variety of subjects, has spent quite a bit of time in the week following the Falcon 9 explosion studying the event in detail and formulating his own ideas as to why the vehicle exploded – more accurately, describing the variables that […]
An Atlas V rocket carrying the OSIRIS-REx probe successfully launched yesterday, September 8th, sending it’s payload on a course that will eventually, in 2018, bring it to the asteriod Bennu, a rocky body believed to contain large quantities of organic molecules, heavy metals, and other useful materials with a goal of returning a sample of […]
Today, September 8th, 2016, marks the scheduled launch date for one of the newest NASA space probes, OSIRIS-REx. This craft is planned to study the asteroid 101955 Bennu, and eventually return a sample of it for study back on Earth. This is quite the ambitious mission, and follows many successful materials return missions dating back […]
A SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster exploded on the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40 today, minutes before a standard test of the first stage engines in anticipation of a scheduled launch on Saturday, September 3rd. Of course, this explosion destroyed the booster vehicle and the payload, the AMOS-6 satellite which was […]