Technology Orbit

TECHNOLOGY ORBIT covers the forefront of space exploration news. With a dedication to exploring and studying space activity worldwide, we make you a part of the New Space Age for the 21st century. A half century past the days of Sputnik, Gemini and Apollo, the skies around Earth are just beginning to open up to new possibilities. From new commercia... l entities launching high-powered rockets to microsatellites, space is opening up to more people more innovative thinking than ever before. JOIN US as TECHNOLOGY ORBIT takes a look at the newest commercial, educational, governmental and human ventures into space. "There's the whole myth about rocket science. It's really not that hard. It's not brain surgery." It has been more than 45 years since astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the Moon aboard the ascent stage of the Apollo 17 Lunar Module Challenger. Since then, no human has gone further into space than Low Earth Orbit . But that might change in the near future as a few groups government and commercial organizations have set plans in motion for new lunar missions, several of which are precursors to landing people on the surface. Although the conditions that inspired the original space race in the 1960s are not the same five decades later, many of the same scientific, economic and political motivations are driving current space efforts. India sent the Chandrayaan-1 probe to lunar orbit in 2008. The mission also included a Moon Impact Probe that made a hard landing on the surface, returning data on the materials just below the lunar surface. Chandrayaan-2 will include an orbiter, a soft-touchdown lander and a rover. The lander is expected to touch down in the south polar area. Chandrayann-2 was originally planned to be joint mission with Russia, but the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, withdrew from the project, setting the schedule back a few years. The mission will now launch in the first quarter of 2018 , with a mission to not only demonstrate IRSO's soft-landing capability, but to also collect ...Read More