Reach for the stars
13 September 2012
In an industry where cost has traditionally been secondary to reliability, space equipment purchasing presents unique challenges. Malcolm Wheatley looks at the issues and finds things may be changing
At 6.45pm on 2 June, the skies over Russia's Baikonur Space Centre lit up as a giant Soyuz-Freygat rocket blasted skywards, carrying the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission into orbit. Some 90 minutes later, after one orbit of the Earth, cheers rang around both the Baikonur control room and the European Space Agency's operations control centre in Darmstadt,...