A Chinese City Wants to Replace Streetlights With an Artificial Moon
The city of Chengdu could be illuminated by a fake moon as early as 2020. Continue reading A Chinese City Wants to Replace Streetlights With an Artificial Moon
Tag Archives: Satellite
Scientists Want to Punch Holes in Clouds With Ultra-Hot Lasers from Space
The satellite laser communication revolution is just around the corner, but it has one especially obstinate foe—overcast weather. Continue reading Scientists Want to Punch Holes in Clouds With Ultra-Hot Lasers from Space
Hams see Dark Side Of The Moon Without Pink Floyd
Ham radio operators bouncing signals off the moon have become old hat. But a ham radio transmitter on the Chinese Longjiang-2 satellite is orbiting the moon and has sent back pictures of the Earth and the dark side of the moon. The transceiver’s main purpose is to allow hams to downlink telemetry and relay messages via lunar orbit.
While the photo was received by the Dwingeloo radio telescope, reports are that other hams also picked up the signal. The entire affair has drawn in hams around the world. Some of the communications use a modulation scheme devised by [Joe Taylor, …read more
Continue reading Hams see Dark Side Of The Moon Without Pink Floyd
How do TV satellites authenticate the receiving signal to make sure its from the TV station that its claiming to be and is not spoofing?
What stops criminals from jamming a channel by sending spoofed signals to its satellite in space, acting like they are from the TV station and therefore hijack or jam the channel?
How can the satellite make sure the rec… Continue reading How do TV satellites authenticate the receiving signal to make sure its from the TV station that its claiming to be and is not spoofing?
France Questions Russian Satellite with “Big Ears”
French Defense Minister Florence Parly took a page out of Little Red Riding Hood when she recently called out a Russian satellite for having “big ears”. While she stopped short of giving any concrete details, it was a rare and not terribly veiled accusation that Russia is using their Luch-Olymp spacecraft to perform orbital espionage.
At a speech in Toulouse, Parly was quoted as saying: “It got close. A bit too close. So close that one really could believe that it was trying to capture our communications.” and “this little Stars Wars didn’t happen a long time ago in a …read more
Continue reading France Questions Russian Satellite with “Big Ears”
‘Very Abnormal’ Russian Satellite Escalates Fears of Orbital Arms Race
Russia and China have been ramping up their military presence in space in order to keep up with American capabilities. Continue reading ‘Very Abnormal’ Russian Satellite Escalates Fears of Orbital Arms Race
Before Sending A Probe To The Sun, Make Sure It Can Take The Heat
This past weekend, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe took off for a journey to study our local star. While its mission is well covered by science literate media sources, the equally interesting behind-the-scenes information is a little harder to come by. For that, we have Science News who gave us a look at some of the work that went into testing the probe.
NASA has built and tested space probes before, but none of them were destined to get as close to the sun as Parker will, creating new challenges for testing the probe. The lead engineer for the heat shield, …read more
Continue reading Before Sending A Probe To The Sun, Make Sure It Can Take The Heat
In-flight satellite comms vulnerable to remote attack, researcher finds
IOActive’s researcher Ruben Santamarta is the sort of person anyone interested in computer security would probably enjoy sitting next to on a long flight. Take the journey he made last November between Madrid and Copenhagen on Norwegian during which (n… Continue reading In-flight satellite comms vulnerable to remote attack, researcher finds
The Photo Lab That Flew to the Moon
When planning a trip by car these days, it’s pretty much standard practice to spin up an image of your destination in Google Maps and get an idea of what you’re in for when you get there. What kind of parking do they have? Are the streets narrow or twisty? Will I be able to drive right up, or will I be walking a bit when I get there? It’s good to know what’s waiting for you, especially if you’re headed someplace you’ve never been before.
NASA was very much of this mind in the 1960s, except the trip they …read more
Conquering The Earth With Cron
The GOES-R series of Earth observation satellites are the latest and greatest NASA has to offer. As you might expect, part of the GOES-R job description is imaging Earth at high-resolution, but they also feature real-time lighting monitoring as well as enhanced solar flare and space weather capabilities. Four of these brand new birds will be helping us keep an eye on our planet’s condition into the 2030s. Not a bad way to spend around 11 billion bucks.
To encourage innovation, NASA is making the images collected by the GOES-R satellites available to the public through a collaboration with Google …read more