Hera and its CubeSats speak with mission control

ESA’s Hera asteroid mission and its two CubeSats interacted as if they were in space, within the foam pyramid-lined walls of the Agency’s Maxwell test chamber in the Netherlands. The trio communicated together, sharing data and ranging information...

Towards zero-debris CubeSats

In the past few years CubeSats revolutionised space applications in low Earth orbit, levelling the playfield and opening space to commercialisation, especially for smaller and medium companies. While their benefits are undeniable, a significant...

Tech In Plain Sight: Theodolites

We take it for granted that you can look at your phone and tell exactly where you are. At least, as exact as the GPS satellites will allow. But throughout human history, there has been a tremendous…

Space industry faces new limits on hazardous chemicals

Health and environmental challenges and regulations in ESA Member States regarding the use of hazardous chemicals are set to further impact space programmes, the space sector and its supply chains.

The Tragic Story Of The Ill-Fated Supergun

In the annals of ambitious engineering projects, few have captured the imagination and courted controversy quite like Gerald Bull’s Supergun. Bull, a Canadian artillery expert, envisioned a g…

Winged CubeSat flock survives loss of leader

An experimental flock of miniature CubeSats has survived the unexpected loss of its leader to begin monitoring water quality across Spain and Portugal.

Cool by design 3D printing

Cool by design 3D printing

DisplayPort: Hacking And Examples

So far, I’ve talked about why DisplayPort is the future, introduced the basics of how to work with it on the hacker level, took apart and tamed the DisplayPort altmode, and recently, went thr…

Measure Three Times, Design Once

Most of the Hackaday community would never wire a power supply to a circuit without knowing the expected voltage and the required current. But our mechanical design is often more bodged. We meet fo…

A Slice Of Simulation, Google Sheets Style

Have you ever tried to eat one jelly bean or one potato chip? It is nearly impossible. Some of us have the same problem with hardware projects. It all started when I wrote about the old bitslice ch…

PCB Design Review: HDMI To LVDS Sony Vaio LCD Devboard

Today, we revisit another board from [Exentio] – a HDMI/DVI to LVDS transmitter for the Sony Vaio P display. This board is cool to review – it has a high-speed serial interface, a paral…

One step closer to a CubeSat swarm mission

The next revolution in space technology could be using swarms of small spacecraft working together rather than one much bigger spacecraft. Following an open call for ideas, ESA selected seven projects for mission/system concept study. On 26 April...

The Engineering Marvel Built to Defend Against Americans — The Grisly History of the Rideau Canal

Canadiana explores the grisly history of the Rideau Canal, a popular tourist attraction in Ottawa and marvel of human engineering from the early 1800s. Support Canadiana on Patreon: https://goo.gl/2tGNNp Donate once w/ PayPal:...