Spaceflight Insider

News Archive / Author: Eric Shear

Eric Shear is a recent graduate from York University, honors bachelor in space science. Before that, Shear studied mechanical engineering at Tacoma Community College. During this time, Shear helped develop the HYDROS water-electrolysis propulsion system at Tethers Unlimited and led a microgravity experiment on the Weightless Wonder parabolic aircraft. Shear has worked for an extended period of time to both enable and promote space flight awareness. Shear agreed to contribute to SpaceFlight Insider’s efforts so that he could provide extra insight into interplanetary missions, both past and present.

Articles By Eric Shear

  • NASA spacecraft eyes remains of ESA’s Schiaparelli lander

    October 22nd, 2016

    NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) confirmed the ExoMars team's worst fears by photographing recently added features on the surface of Mars at Meridiani Planum believed to have been created by a crash landing of Europe's Schiaparelli test lander. The demonstrator entered Mars' atmosphere at Mars Oct. 19. All seemed to be going well until the signal cut off about 50 seconds before its planned touchdown.

  • Aeroskirt added to Atlas V configuration for CST-100 Starliner

    October 14th, 2016

    United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Boeing unveiled an add-on aeroskirt to the Atlas V rocket that will launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule for NASA. It was developed after engineers encountered difficulties with aerodynamic stability and loads resulting from the difference in width between the capsule and the rocket.

  • Conspiracy theories regarding Amos-6 Falcon 9 explosion not based on physics, reality

    October 4th, 2016

    On Sept. 1, 2016, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its payload of the Amos-6 satellite were lost in a massive fireball. The NewSpace firm is investigating the accident. With little information available, an array of causes have been put forward as to what might have happened. Some are less believable than others.

  • ULA preparing to launch WorldView-4 satellite from Vandenberg

    September 15th, 2016

    ULA is ready to launch the the WorldView-4 satellite from SLC-3E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Friday, Sept. 16. Previously known as GeoEye-2, the spacecraft was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and is operated by DigitalGlobe.

  • Falcon 9 explosion could be ‘most difficult and complex failure’ in SpaceX history

    September 10th, 2016

    It has been over a week since the Sept. 1 launch pad explosion that destroyed both the Falcon 9 rocket and the $200 million Amos-6 satellite. In that time, SpaceX has shed few details about what exactly happened. In a Sept. 9 post on Twitter, the company CEO and founder, Elon Musk, said the failure could be "the most difficult and complex" the NewSpace firm has had to deal with in 14 years.

  • Boeing’s CST-100 undergoes ground landing tests

    August 25th, 2016

    Boeing and NASA engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, have begun a series of six ground landing qualification tests to simulate what Boeing’s CST-100 "Starliner" spacecraft and crew may experience during a landing in the American Southwest from the International Space Station.

  • NanoRacks platform placed outside International Space Station

    August 18th, 2016

    On Aug. 9, 2016, the NanoRacks External Platform (NREP) was placed on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). It was completely self-funded by the company and is the first-ever commercial gateway-and-return to the extreme environment of space. It was designed in-house and manufactured by Airbus whose also has an office in Houston.

  • Dream Chaser set to begin Phase Two flight testing

    July 31st, 2016

    After upgrades and hardware testing at Sierra Nevada Corporation's (SNC) spacecraft assembly facility in Louisville, Colorado, an engineering test version of the Dream Chaser vehicle will be transported to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in California within the next several weeks.

  • Our Spaceflight Heritage: Invasion of the Vikings

    July 20th, 2016

    Forty years ago, NASA’s Viking landers roared to a hover over the Martian surface and touched down. They were the culmination of the ambitious Mars Voyager (no relation to NASA's Voyager probes) program that had begun near the end of the Apollo era and filed down to a more manageable size due to budget cuts. Despite the reduced scope, the Viking program was a tremendous success.

  • Bigelow Aerospace B330 space hab to get ride on ULA Atlas V 552 in 2020

    April 12th, 2016

    The handover of space activities in LEO to commercial firms is accelerating at an ever-increasing pace. On Monday, April 11, 2016, Bigelow Aerospace and ULA announced that an Atlas V 552 rocket would be used to deploy an expandable habitat based on the BA-330 design – with that flight coming as soon as 2020.

  • ‘BEAM me up SpaceX!’ Bigelow’s prototype habitat loaded onto CRS-8 Dragon

    March 26th, 2016

    Bigelow's BEAM module was loaded into the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon at KSC, in preparations for the CRS-8 flight from Cape Canaveral's SLC-40 on April 8, 2016. It will be the tenth flight for a Dragon cargo spacecraft and the eighth flight under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract with SpaceX.

  • Apollo 14’s Edgar Mitchell passes away at age 85

    February 6th, 2016

    Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell passed away on Feb. 4, 2016, peacefully at a hospice located in Lake Worth, Florida. He was the sixth man to walk on the Moon, as the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14. His time in space totaled nine days and one minute, including 9 hours and 23 minutes on two moonwalks.