Tag: spacecraft

After Decades of Silence, a Vintage Spacecraft Says Hello to Earth

Posted by Jason Davis 06-06-2014

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A group of space enthusiasts and vintage hardware experts walk into a radio observatory. They contact a 36-year-old spacecraft to ask how it’s doing. The spacecraft responds and says it’s well. The group leaves and continues to stay in touch with the spacecraft from their laptops, working out of an old McDonald’s building at the NASA Ames Research Center. It’s no joke – that’s the latest news coming from the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, a crowdfunded effort to repurpose NASA’s International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE-3), launched in 1978 on a mission to study Earth’s magnetosphere. In 1983, ISEE was sent on a …

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

After decades of silence, a vintage spacecraft says hello to Earth

SpaceX Unveils Fully Reusable Spacecraft That Can Carry 7 Astronauts & Land Anywhere on Earth

SpaceX founder Elon Musk took the wraps off its next-generation spacecraft today, called Dragon V2. The key improvements are that Dragon V2 will be able to land anywhere on Earth with its propulsion system and the accuracy of a helicopter. It will also be capable of carrying seven astronauts for several days. Musk said Dragon V2 is capable of docking autonomously, and that it can land either via the propulsion system, or in the case that any engines aren’t working – deploy parachutes for a safe landing. Even after starting the propulsion system, it can afford to lose two engines and land safely – primarily because of upgraded powerful engines known as “Super Draco” thrusters. Apart from the convenience of a landing location…

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SpaceX unveils a ‘fully reusable’ spacecraft that can carry 7 astronauts and land anywhere on Earth


Also published on Medium.

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