drew@drewexmachina.com
The first part of my latest article, “Planetary Orbit Insertion Failures Part I”, has been published on line in The Space Review. With a half a […]
Whenever I think “gamma ray observatory”, impressive orbiting platforms come to mind like NASA’s massive 17 metric ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory launched in 1991 or […]
It is quite common to associate rockets with cutting edge technology. But oddly enough until the last decade or so, the rocket engines used by most […]
Earlier this week, the discovery of a pair of planets orbiting the nearby Kapteyn’s Star was announced [1, 2]. While such announcements go largely unnoticed nowadays […]
On December 14, 1962, NASA’s Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to return data of closeup observations from another world. What is not as widely known […]
Even after over four decades, I still clearly recall my third-grade class field trip to the Boston Museum of Science – my first of many visits […]
At the same time the first Apollo launch abort test flight with the Little Joe II was taking place (see The First Apollo-Little Joe II Launch), […]
The 1976 Viking missions to Mars have been our only attempts to date to search directly for life on another planet. The pair of identical Viking […]
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 […]
Departing from my usual posts on space-related topics, I am announcing that Drew Ex Machina is now on Facebook as part of my effort to expand […]
In recent years there has been increasing interest in picosatellites (small satellites typically with a mass of 0.1 to 1 kilogram) which use the latest miniaturized […]
Today we almost take for granted one of the key technologies that makes spaceflight possible: the liquid propellant rocket engine. Exactly a century ago today, famed […]
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