News Archive / Author: Space Safety Magazine

Space Safety Magazine (SSM) is a quarterly print magazine and a daily news website, jointly published by the International Association for Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) and the International Space Safety Foundation (ISSF). Space Safety Magazine is focused on safety related issues affecting space as well as safety on Earth from space events and objects. We regularly follows activities and threats in space debris and situational awareness, space weather and radiation impacts, nuclear safety, human spaceflight, launches, and reentries. SSM is highly international in nature, reporting on developments from around the globe, distributing content on multiple continents, and featuring an international staff.

Articles By Space Safety Magazine

• Impact of new satellite launch trends on orbital debris

  June 5th, 2016

  More than 7,000 satellites have been launched into Earth orbit since the flight of Sputnik 1 in 1957. However, they stop functioning once they are out of fuel or one of their systems fail; only around 1,400 of them are currently in orbit and operational. During the early days of the space age, it was not considered what would happen to the satellites once they become non-operational.

• The making of India’s Space Shuttle: The inside story

  June 4th, 2016

  In an unassuming hangar near a fishing village in Kerala in southern India, the efforts of more than 600 scientists over the last five years have converged together to provide India with one of the nation's most notable efforts in its space exploration efforts. It was there that India’s very own space shuttle, dubbed the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), was conceived and nurtured by the Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO.

• Past and current Ariane launchers: A review

  December 27th, 2014

  With a recent 63rd consecutive launch success, the European launcher Ariane 5 has a leader position on the commercial launchers market. In order to ensure this leading position, ESA’s member governments met in Luxembourg in December 2014 and agreed on Ariane 5’s next evolution, While Germany was in favor of a progressive upgrade of the […]

• The Antares rocket accident: Dissecting space disasters in the media

  November 6th, 2014

  The recent loss of an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo vehicle to the International Space Station shocked the space community and the public alike. In some ways, that’s good. Launches to the space station have mostly gone well in recent times, and a launch failure is viewed as being highly abnormal.

• OPINION: The SpaceShipTwo disaster: A matter of transparency

  November 1st, 2014

  Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed on Friday Oct. 31 during a test flight in California’s Mojave Desert, killing one of the two crewmembers and leaving the other seriously injured. Scant details are presently available, but it is clear that this incident will set back suborbital flights for paying customers for an extended period of time.

• Mishap board releases EVA close call report

  March 1st, 2014

  On February 26, the NASA board investigating the near-drowning of ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano on July 16, 2013 during an extravehicular activity (EVA) issued the public version of its mishap report. In a press conference, Board Chairman and International Space Station (ISS) Chief Engineer Christopher Hansen made the surprising revelation that the leak that prematurely […]

• Opinion: The future of International Space and its Station

  February 4th, 2014

  Washington D.C. played host to space agency representatives from 32 nations on January 9-10, who attended summits on international collaboration in the space sector. As a welcome present, the US White House announced its intention to support an extension of the International Space Station operations through 2024.

• Analysis of Newest Falcon 9′s First Flight Continues

  October 9th, 2013

  On September 29, SpaceX successfully lofted its next generation Falcon 9 v1.1 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying the Canadian Cassiope satellite and three secondary payloads. All satellites were correctly placed into low Earth orbit, but subsequent testing designed to prepare for future geostationary orbital insertions was not completed as planned.

• Gravity: Ripped from the Headlines?

  October 7th, 2013

  October 4 is the US release of the space thriller motion picture “Gravity.” Directed by Alfonso Cuarón and written by Cuarón and his son Jonás Cuarón, “Gravity” tells the story of a couple of astronauts, Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski, are stranded on a spacewalk during a repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope when […]