Spaceflight Vol 58 No 04 – April 2016

The Men from MOL
Rowland White shares with Spaceflight the story of the astronauts who migrated from the Manned Orbiting Laboratory to NASA and trained for long duration flights before participating in Shuttle missions.

Settlement of Mars: is it possible?
Stephen Ashworth appeals for a combined government/commercial partnership to extend the human presence to Mars and populate the first settlements on Earth’s nearest, habitable planet.

ExoMars Countdown
The launch of ESA’s 2016 ExoMars mission is imminent and we describe the activities at Baikonur as teams from across Europe prepare it for departure on a Proton rocket.

Which way to Mars, please?
With development of the Orion spacecraft and the SLS rocket moving toward a first flight in a little over two years from now, just what are the options for NASA as it sets its sights on Mars?

Icarus Designs – Part 1
Peter Milne gives us an update on progress with Project Icarus and explains two of the four options available for the design team, given the revised specification from Daedalus.

NASA’s Lost Boilerplate
Eddie Pugh tells the fascinating story of a boilerplate Apollo Command Module which went AWOL in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, recovered by the Russians and returned to its owner!

Saturn/Apollo to Venus via Mars
Spaceflight Editor David Baker describes a little publicised proposal to use a combination of Apollo hardware to send astronauts to the nearest planets on long duration fly-by missions.

Regular Features

News Analysis – Funding battle brewing

Briefing notes – news shorts from around the world

ISS Operations – 16 January-15 February 2016

Flashback – A regular feature looking back 50 years ago this month

Satellite Digest – 519 January 2016

Society News – Patrick Moore Medal Award – A 50 year Career in Space – Skylab assignment

What’s On