Starship’s heat shield is made of up of an array of ceramic tiles. Each is a small component, but together they have large consequences.
Articles on Rockets
Displaying 1 - 20 of 57 articles
The future of a proposed rocket-launch facility in South Australia is uncertain. But tensions between space exploration and conservation remain.
A physical chemist outlines the promises and risks associated with methane fuel and describes why SpaceX and Blue Origin use it in their superheavy rockets.
NASA has several contracts with Blue Origin as part of its Artemis program – this setback for the company could delay the program.
From World War II to the Apollo era, the space shuttle program and today’s privately developed commercial rockets, the landscape of spaceflight has changed dramatically.
What does it mean for national security if access to Earth’s orbit depends largely on one company?
The first in a new series dedicated to little-known but highly influential scientists.
Katy Perry and friends were savaged after their journey into space. The backlash is justified.
Even without recovering New Glenn’s reusable booster, Blue Origin has joined the ranks of commercial companies with rockets able to launch into orbit.
A rocket needs to overcome the force of gravity to leave Earth behind.
Sending a nuclear fission reactor into space means lots of technical questions. One research group is coming up with models that could improve how a nuclear rocket starts up and powers down.
As the number of satellites and rocket launches increases, so does the amount of discarded rockets and components. This space junk risks falling to Earth, as it did in Saskatchewan this spring.
Science fiction and technological innovation feed off each other in an ongoing back-and-forth that can play out over decades.
It will be painful if Israel and Hamas militants continue to exchange rocket fire and airstrikes. But invading Gaza would increase the devastation even further.
The bloody ground attacks by Hamas in Israel caused the biggest shock. But the unprecedented scale of rocketry and successful use of armed drones contributed to the surprise.
The Overview Effect describes the transformative impact of seeing Earth from space and feeling profoundly connected to our planet and concerned for it. That’s at odds with the impact of space tourism.
The launch of a new rocket is always an exciting event. SpaceX’s ‘go fast and fail’ approach means that even though the test ended with engineers blowing up the rocket, it was a valuable first flight.
China has invested massively in its space capabilities in recent years and is now a major competitor with the US. But according to a space policy expert, the US still dominates space by most measures.
Europa Clipper and the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer missions will arrive at Jupiter in the 2030s and provide researchers with unprecedented access to the moons orbiting the gas giant.
Rockets used to launch satellites fall back to Earth, and as their number grows, the risk faced by people living on the ground — or flying in airplanes — increases.
Top contributors
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Professor of Strategy and Security Studies, Air University
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Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open University
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Professor of Operations Research, Brock University
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Assistant Professor of Space and International Relations, Johns Hopkins University
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Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles
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Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia
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Professor of Physics, UMass Lowell
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Associate Professor, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
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Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Newcastle
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Professor, Director of the Centre for Robotics, Queensland University of Technology
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Clarence Nickman Assistant Professor of Management, University of Pennsylvania
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Spacecraft Engineer, University of Bristol
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PhD candidate (Cognitive Neuroscience/ Neuroengineering), The University of Queensland
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Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics & Astronautics, University of Tokyo
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Professor of Engineering Dynamics and Vibration, University of Cambridge