Scientists Successfully Test an Air-Breathing Satellite Thruster
How to make atmospheric drag work for satellites, instead of against them. Continue reading Scientists Successfully Test an Air-Breathing Satellite Thruster
Category Archives: satellites
SpaceX Just Launched Its First High-Speed Internet Satellites Into Orbit
The goal, to create a constellation of more than 12,000 satellites, is part of a project called Starlink. Continue reading SpaceX Just Launched Its First High-Speed Internet Satellites Into Orbit
The US Air Force Wants More Money to Defend Its Satellites
The 2019 budget for Air Force space equipment and R&D, including new satellite defenses, represents a 9-percent increase over 2018. Continue reading The US Air Force Wants More Money to Defend Its Satellites
The Dangerous Downside to DARPA’s New Repair Satellite
One country’s orbital mechanic could be another’s saboteur. Continue reading The Dangerous Downside to DARPA’s New Repair Satellite
Aireon Hitchhikes on Iridium to Track Airplanes
SpaceX just concluded 2017 by launching 10 Iridium NEXT satellites. A footnote on the launch was the “hosted payload” on board each of the satellites: a small box of equipment from Aireon. They will track every aircraft around the world in real-time, something that has been technically possible but nobody claimed they could do it economically until now.
Challenge one: avoid adding cost to aircraft. Instead of using expensive satcom or adding dedicated gear, Aireon listen to ADS-B equipment already installed as part of international air traffic control modernization. But since ADS-B was designed for aircraft-to-aircraft and aircraft-to-ground, Aireon had …read more
Continue reading Aireon Hitchhikes on Iridium to Track Airplanes
This Strange Sensor Russia Sent to the ISS Is Baffling US Military Experts
“I think the appropriate reaction is ‘mild curiosity’ rather than ‘worry.'” Continue reading This Strange Sensor Russia Sent to the ISS Is Baffling US Military Experts
A Giant, Mysterious Hole Has Opened Up in Antarctica
“We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on.” Continue reading A Giant, Mysterious Hole Has Opened Up in Antarctica
Satellite Tracking With Friends
If you’re in the mood to track satellites, it’s a relatively simple task to look up one of a multitude of websites that can give you a list of satellites visible from your location. However, if you’re interested in using satellites to communicate with far-flung friends, you might be interested in this multi-point satellite tracker.
[Stephen Downward VA1QLE] developed the tracker to make it easier to figure out which satellites would be simultaneously visible to people at different locations on the Earth’s surface. This is useful for amateur radio, as signals can be passed through satellites with ham gear onboard …read more
Hack Space Debris At Your Peril
Who has dibs on space debris? If getting to it were a solved problem, it sure would be fun to use dead orbital hardware as something of a hacker’s junk bin. Turns out there is some precedent for this, and regulations already in place in the international community.
To get you into the right frame of mind: it’s once again 2100 AD and hackers are living in mile-long space habitats in the Earth-Moon system. But from where do those hackers get their raw material, their hardware? The system abounds with space debris, defunct satellites from a century of technological progress. …read more
We’re Fighting Famine in South Sudan With Images From Outer Space
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, DigitalGlobe, and thousands of online volunteers partner up to map out displacement in crisis-stricken regions. Continue reading We’re Fighting Famine in South Sudan With Images From Outer Space