First and Last Launches of the Space Shuttle

Well spotted. The internal photo isn’t a picture of the Space Shuttle. It’s one of the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) first astronauts, Wubbo Ockels, inside the ESA Spacelab D1 in the Shuttle’s cargo bay (both pictures are courtesy of and copyright ©NASA).

ESA’s first astronaught was Ulf Merbold flying in Spacelab on STS-9.

I’m writing this piece now because today is to be the very last flight of a space shuttle. As I type, the launch is scheduled for about 5 hours’ time, weather at Cocoa Beach permitting.

Spacelab was developed in parallel and in conjunction with NASA’s space shuttle to be the orbiting laboratory in the Shuttle’s cargo bay, as a follow-on for Skylab and prior to the ISS (International Space Station).

The Spacelab programme was run from ESA’s ESTEC facility (European Space Technology Centre) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. I worked at ESTEC all through the 1970s – not on Spacelab but on different communications satellites. [Read more…]

Prologue : Satellite Spy’s First Blog Post

How do you start a blog that you know will go on for years? My answer: Dive in at the deep end!

This is the book I’ve wanted to write for years, but organising a book, spending months getting everything organised and in the right order is just plain boring. When, if ever, it’s finished it’ll be out of date, things will be missing and it’ll need a re-write.

No, much better to tell the story as it flows and let events and readers’ responses trigger half-forgotten incidents. Thank goodness someone invented blogs.

 

I’ve been into space and communications ever since I can remember, as evidenced by the photo. Yes, that’s really me back in the 1950s in my space suit with plastic (a new invention!) helmet and an old valve radio/TV chassis. [Read more…]