drew@drewexmachina.com
For most of human history, the planets were distant bodies that could only be studied from afar and visited only in our imaginations. But with the […]
During the opening years of the Space Age, the Soviet Union managed to beat the United States to one Moon-related first after another: The first lunar […]
Recent years have witnessed renewed interest in missions to the Moon. In addition to the United States and Russia, who dominated the exploration of the Moon […]
Probably one of the most dangerous phases of a space mission is launch which is why almost all crewed spacecraft have had launch abort options to […]
This is the last in a series of articles on the historic Gemini 6 and 7 missions. The story about the original rendezvous and docking mission […]
With the loss of the Agena target vehicle shortly after it was launched on October 25, 1965 and no replacement immediately available, NASA scrapped the original […]
Today, spacecraft rendezvousing in orbit to support crews spending months at a time in space is fairly routine. But a half a century ago, the technology […]
The launching of spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station (ISS) is considered routine today. Without this ability, new crews and vital supplies […]
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 […]
Back when I was growing up in the heyday of the Apollo program, all young space enthusiasts like myself knew about NASA’s trio of unmanned lunar […]
Back when I was growing up during the first “Golden Age” of planetary exploration, one planetary exploration program stood out among the rest: NASA’s Mariner series […]
While interest in miniaturized satellites for a range of applications has been growing in recent years, as a class these satellites are hardly new. By necessity, […]