After the Soyuz spacecraft failed to get into orbit on 11 October 2018, it looked like Soyuz flights to the ISS might be on hold for a period of time and that the ISS would even need to be temporarily abandoned. Luckily this hasn't happened. The next Soyuz will fly to the ISS on 3… Continue reading The future of the International Space Station
Tag: NASA
Space stations past and present
The International Space Station (ISS) is now 20 years old. In this post I’ll talk about the history of the ISS and other space stations, and I’ll also touch on some of the politics involved. Image from NASA Early space stations Although America was the first country to put a man on the Moon, the… Continue reading Space stations past and present
The International Space Station updated
Since the publication of the original post on 2 August 2018, NASA have delayed the planned launch dates for the American spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In my original post I referred to the Boeing and SpaceX spacecraft taking astronauts this year, which was an ambitious target, bearing in mind that it… Continue reading The International Space Station updated
The International Space Station
Updated 24 December 2025 Image from NASA. The first module of the ISS, called Zarya, was launched by a Russian rocket back in November 1998. Zarya was not an inhabitable module and its function was to provide electrical power, storage and propulsion to the ISS during the initial stages of assembly. Interesting the word ‘Zarya’… Continue reading The International Space Station
Methane on Mars
I was very excited to read about the discovery published last week by NASA’s Curiosity rover of the seasonal variation in the amount of methane in Mars’ atmosphere. Curiosity found that the average methane concentration varied from 0.24 parts per billion (ppb) in the northern hemisphere winter to around 0.65 ppb in the summer. This… Continue reading Methane on Mars
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