Aeronautics & Aerospace

The Problem With Spinning Spacecraft

Wired: While it would be awesome for people to be able to live in space, a “weightless” environment poses some serious challenges. Humans function best on Earth’s surface, where they are affected by a constant gravitational force. Without it, there are well-known consequences of long-term exposure to microgravity, including…

Large Scale Interactive Drone Swarm Management

YouTube: Imagine being able to control a swarm of drones with just your hands or gestures. In this video, we explore a future concept-of-operations for swarm management and how large groups of robots and drones will be able to interact…

Beam me down: can solar power from space help solve our energy needs?

The Guardian: In late November, a top-level meeting of European science ministers will convene in Paris. Their job is to decide the next priorities for the European Space Agency (Esa), of which the UK is still a member, and one of…

NASA’s DART Spacecraft Smashes Into an Asteroid—on Purpose

Wired: NASA is usually pretty careful with its space probes. But this time, with DART, it’s different. A team of scientists have now deliberately plowed a craft into a tumbling space rock at high speed. Mission accomplished. It’s just a…