A fascinating experiment is underway at the Marshall Space Flight Center to demonstrate the potential of a new form of solar sail which does away with the fabric entirely. Instead of attempting to deploy a troublesome sail made of mylar, the E-Sail uses instead a series of thin aluminum wires spun out from the slowly […]
The “Rocket City” may be taking a big step in seeing some of its storied history coming home, literally, in the form of a descending Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser space plane. Yesterday, officials in Huntsville, Al held an industry session to promote Dream Chaser landings in the city that helped launch America into the space […]
For a brief period in the 1990’s, Solar Thermal Propulsion appeared to be on the cusp of becoming the next big thing in space technology. While that obviously has not happened yet, a recent NASA Future in Space Operations (FISO) presentation from Marshall Space Flight Center suggests it may still be an approach whose time […]
Image Credit: NASA Update: NASA has once again postponed the LDSD test due to high waves in the recovery area. The next window opens tomorrow, June 4th, at 7:30 AM HST (1:30 PM EDT). Last year, NASA conducted the first of series of tests of a new method for landing larger payloads on Mars. The […]
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