drew@drewexmachina.com
Looking at NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which has been in orbit around the Moon since 2009, people today might take it for granted that lunar […]
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 […]
On July 14, 2015 NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will make its closest approach to the dwarf planet Pluto after a long voyage of 9½ years. Even […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
My latest article, “…Try, try again”, has been published on line in The Space Review. It is a continuation of a series of articles that I […]
Back in the 1990s, there was a veritable flood of new information about the once secretive Soviet space program including details of their early failed planetary […]
Fifty years ago today the Soviet Union launched Zond 1 on a mission to land on Venus. Unfortunately this probe succumbed to a series of malfunctions […]
