satellite – Leonardo Times

5Apr

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Aviation, Propulsion, Space engineering, Space flight

The Airbus Zephyr

Authors: Rens van der Zwaard & Max Aalberse, MSc Students Aerospace Engineering, TU Delft Article published in Leonardo Times Magazine, Edition of January 2017. The Zephyr 8 is a compromise between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and satellites. It has the ability to fly autonomously in the stratosphere, above all weather and air traffic, the advantage being that it can perform its functions without having to take unexpected weather changes into account. Its endurance at this altitude is in the order of weeks. Therefore, the Zephyr can do the job of a satellite while flying sufficiently close to the surface to make high-resolution images and is inexpensive to use, relative to developing and launching a satellite. Another advantage is that the Zephyr can always stay focused on th...

SpaceX relaunches a used rocket making history

On March 30, 2017, SpaceX made spaceflight history by reusing a rocket that was used for a previous launch. Their Falcon-9 rocket that was previously used for a mission eleven months earlier, was used to launch the SES-10 satellite. This satellite is intended to provide TV, internet, telephone and radio coverage for South America. The rocket, once launched at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, deployed its payload successfully about half an hour later. Following this, it was autonomously guided back to a droneship called “Of Course I Still Love You” that was stationed in the Atlantic and landed safely. SpaceX has been on the path toward using reusable rockets and this launch marked a milestone for them. In the past year, they have managed to recover the first stage of nine o...

NASA’s EO-1 Retires After 17 Years

Earth Observing-1 (EO-1), one of NASA’s pathfinder Earth satellites, was launched back in 2000 as part of their New Millennium Program. Its original mission was designed to last one year and it was designed to operate for about 1.5 times that duration. Seventeen years later, we can safely say that it has far exceeded expectations. Now EO-1 is finally set to retire on March 30, 2017. Some of its achievements include being the first to map active lava flows, track re-growth in the Amazon and measure a methane leak at a facility from space. During its operation, more than 1500 papers were published based on EO-1 research. Fig. Methane emissions detected by EO-1’s Hyperion (Source: earthobservatory.nasa.gov) Two of the instruments on board the EO-1 that made this possible are the Adva...