Space – Horizon Magazine Blog

Making satellites safer: the search for new propellants

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

The current standard propellant for satellites based on hydrazine, which is highly toxic, so researchers are developing safer alternatives. Image credit - NASA-JPL/Caltech

by Kelly Oakes Developing new propellants for satellites to replace toxic hydrazine would make launching and handling satellites safer but it also requires disrupting current systems, according to researchers. As the number of satellites soars, so will the amount of fuel we use to launch them. And getting into orbit is only half of the equation. … Read more

The mission to build a reusable launcher for Europe

March 16, 2020March 16, 2020 by Sandrine Ceurstemont

US company SpaceX is one of several who are developing reusable launchers. Image credit - Bill Jelen/Unsplash

The race is on to develop a European reusable rocket that can ensure Europe’s autonomous and cost-effective access to space while increasing the sustainability of launches. Launch vehicles – or rockets – are essential to deliver satellites and space probes into space. Once they’ve served their purpose, they’re typically disposed of. But with the annual … Read more

Docking, rendezvous and Newton’s third law – the challenge of servicing satellites in space

March 10, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

Satellite-fixing robots could revive the more than 3,000 dead satellites in orbit today. Image credit – Pxhere, licenced under CCO

by Jonathan O’Callaghan If you want to build or fix something in space, you might think you’d need a human to do it. But what if you didn’t? What if robotic spacecraft could be used to refuel satellites in orbit, add new instruments to outdated machinery and even build entire structures while in space? This idea … Read more

Q&A: ‘We need to improve how we keep track of objects in space’

March 2, 2020March 2, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

A near-collision between the European science satellite Aeolus and a satellite from the US company SpaceX has shown the need to keep better track of objects in space. Image credit - ESA/ATG MEDIALAB

by Jonathan O’Callaghan We need to improve how we keep track of objects in space and predict where they will go in order to avoid collisions in Earth’s increasingly crowded orbit, according to Dimitra Stefoudi, a space law researcher from Leiden University in the Netherlands. In September 2019, the European science satellite Aeolus avoided a collision with … Read more

Five things we’re going to learn from Europe’s Solar Orbiter mission

February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 by Horizon Magazine

The Solar Orbiter will let us see the sun in unprecedented detail, potentially including the first-ever view of the sun's poles. Image credit - ESA/ATG medialab

by Jonathan O’Callaghan At 23.03 (local time) on Sunday 9 February, Europe’s newest mission to study the sun is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US. Called Solar Orbiter, this European Space Agency (ESA) mission will travel to within the orbit of planet Mercury to study the sun like never before, returning stunning new … Read more

How did supermassive black holes grow so fast?

December 9, 2019 by Horizon Magazine

Astronomers are trying to determine how supermassive black holes, such as the one at the heart of the galaxy M87, grew so quickly. Image credit - EHT Collaboration

by Jonathan O’Callaghan Black holes in the early universe pose a bit of a problem. Based on observations from telescopes on Earth and in space, we know that some black holes grew to be a billion times the mass of the sun just one billion years after the Big Bang. Our current models of black … Read more