Space and astronomy news
LightSail 2, the brainchild of The Planetary Society, has gifted us two new gorgeous images of Earth. The small spacecraft is currently in orbit at about 720 km, and the LightSail 2 mission team is putting it through its paces in preparation for solar sail deployment sometime on or after Sunday, July 21st.
Continue reading “LightSail 2 is Sending Home New Pictures of Earth”
Back in April 2019 Amazon signaled its intention to get into the internet satellite business. Following in the footsteps of SpaceX and their Starlink satellite system, Amazon intends to launch thousands of internet satellites in the coming years. Now that they’ve filed their application with the FCC, we have more details of their plan.
Continue reading “Move Over SpaceX. Amazon Wants To Launch Thousands of Internet Satellites Too”
Since 2015, Virgin Orbit has been developing a launch system that will send satellites into space using a rocket launched from a modified 747. This is part of Sir Richard Branson’s plan to crack the burgeoning market of cost-effective satellite deployment. This market is especially lucrative considering how many satellites are expected to be launched into orbit in the coming years.
This week, the Virgin Orbit team achieved a major milestone by flying the LauncherOne rocket into the air and releasing it over the Mojave desert for the first time. This drop-test not only validated the design of the modified 747 (named Cosmic Girl) that serves as its flying launchpad, it also demonstrated the effectiveness of the launch system – which can rely on regular airstrips instead of launch pads to send satellites into space.
Continue reading “Virgin Orbit Tests its Satellite-Delivery Rocket for the First Time”
The growing problem of space debris in LEO (Low-Earth Orbit) is garnering more and more attention. With thousands of satellites in orbit, and thousands more on the way, our appetite for satellites seems boundless. But every satellite has a shelf-life. What do we do with them when they’ve outlived their usefulness and devolve into simple, troublesome space debris?
Continue reading “Can We Use Special Sails To Bring Old Satellites Back Down To Earth?”
On June 25th, 2019, The Planetary Society‘s
Since reaching orbit, the LightSail 2 has been indicated that it is in good working order, as indicated by the Mission Control Dashboard recently introduced by The Planetary Society. In addition to establishing two-way communications with mission controllers and passing a battery of checkouts, the spacecraft also took its first pictures of Earth (and some selfies for good measure).
Continue reading “LightSail 2 Mission is Going Strong and Sending Mission Info Home!”
Back in May 23rd, 2019, SpaceX launched the first batch of its Starlink constellation, a fleet of satellites that will fulfill Elon Musk’s promise to provide broadband satellite-internet access to the entire planet. The deployment of these sixty satellites was the first in a series of six planned launches that would see around 720 satellites orbiting at an operational altitude of 550 km (340 mi).
Over the course of the past month, SpaceX announced that all sixty of the satellites were responsive, but recently indicated that contact had been lost with three of them. According to a statement issued by a company spokesperson on June 28th, these three satellites pose no danger as they will deorbit “passively” and burn up in the atmosphere.
Continue reading “SpaceX has Lost Contact With 3 of its Starlink Satellites”
There’s no denying it, we are facing an orbital debris problem! As of January 2019, the ESA’s Space Debris Office estimates that there are at least 34,000 pieces of large debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – a combination of dead satellites, spent rocket stages, and other assorted bits of space junk. And with thousands of satellites scheduled to be launched in the next decade, that problem is only going to get worse.
This is a situation that cries out for solutions, especially when you consider the plans to commercialize LEO and start sending crewed missions to deep space in the coming years. A team of scientists from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has come up with a simple but elegant idea: equip future satellites with a tether system so they can de-orbit themselves at the end of their lives.
Continue reading “Satellites Equipped With a Tether Would be Able to De-Orbit Themselves at the end of Their Life”
In 2014, British entrepreneur Charles Black founded the company Sen (an acronym for Space Exploration Network) with the vision of “democratizing space”. Behind this vision was Black’s desire to create the world’s first 4K video streaming platform that could send video from space to billions of people worldwide. The purpose of this is to educate the public on our ever-changing world and our growing presence in space.
The key to this ambitious goal is the creation of a constellation of small satellites that will provide real-time video from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The company recently took a major step towards making that happen by using their recently-deployed satellite to gather footage of Earth and space from orbit. This effectively demonstrated the capabilities of their platform and may represent a new step in NewSpace.
Continue reading “Sen has Launched a 4K Video Stream to Space”
On Thursday, May 23rd, 2019, SpaceX launched the first batch of their Starlink satellites to orbit. The launch took place at 10:30 pm EDT (07:30 pm PDT) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral on the Florida coast. With this delivery, SpaceX founder Elon Musk is making good on his promise to begin providing global broadband internet access to the entire world, a goal that has become somewhat challenging in recent years.
Continue reading “SpaceX just launched 60 satellites for its Starlink Constellation. Internet service providers should be very worried.”
The Planetary Society is going to launch their LightSail 2 CubeSat next month. LightSail 2 is a test mission designed to study the feasibility of using sunlight for propulsion. The small satellite will use the pressure of sunlight on its solar sails to propel its way to a higher orbit.
Continue reading “Planetary Society’s Light Sail 2 is Set to Launch on a Falcon Heavy Rocket Next Month”