drew@drewexmachina.com
With so many spacecraft operating in orbit and on the surface of Mars today, providing a record-setting torrent of scientific data from our neighbor, it seems […]
When I was growing up in the 1970s, I was already an avid space enthusiast who tried to keep abreast of all the latest space missions. […]
One of the most crucial phases of many interplanetary missions is orbit insertion. Everything must go right the first time, or the spacecraft fails to enter […]
By the beginning of 1963 as the crippled Mars 1 was making its way towards the Red Planet, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev and his team at […]
As anyone with even a passing knowledge of spaceflight can tell you, space is an unforgiving place. While the majority of space missions launched today are […]
Today we have a veritable fleet of spacecraft from nations around the globe studying Mars from orbit and its surface. But just over half a century […]
On May 5, 1965, Soviet authorities officially announced that contact with the malfunctioning Zond 2 spacecraft had been lost three months before it reached Mars. Zond […]
The history of spaceflight is littered with projects that never flew. Many projects never get past the concept stage while a few were cancelled only months […]
While I have had a long-time interest in lunar and planetary exploration both as a scientist and a historian, for the past quarter of a century […]
The second part of my latest article, “Planetary Orbit Insertion Failures Part II”, has been published on line in The Space Review. With a half a […]
Entering orbit around another planet from an interplanetary approach trajectory is probably one of the most critical phases in a planetary mission. Everything must come together […]
The Soviet planetary probe, Mars 1, was the first spacecraft to survive launch to be sent on its way to the Red Planet. Although Mars 1 […]
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