Lifeboat Foundation

A new space weather sensor is heading to the International Space Station to help scientists understand how the sun’s outbursts alter Earth’s upper atmosphere.

The sensor’s data will help space weather forecasters predict how sudden eruptions of radiation and plasma from the star at the center of our solar system disrupt satellite communication links and affect signals from navigational satellites such as Europe’s Galileo.

Breaking into the 31st week of 2023, from July 31 to Aug. 6, not much is held in store in terms of launches. Up first this week — following an aborted launch attempt last week — Rocket Lab will launch Capella Space’s Acadia satellite to a mid-inclination low-earth orbit. Later, a momentous flight will take place, when the last Antares 230+ will fly to low-Earth orbit (LEO) during the NG-19 resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Following slightly more than a day later, a Chang Zheng 4C carrying the Fengyun-3F meteorological satellite will take to the skies from Jiuquan, China. Shortly after that, it will be the turn of a Falcon 9 transporting Maxar-built Galaxy 37 inside its fairing. It will be deployed into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), with the satellite reaching a geostationary orbit (GEO) by itself.

Continue reading “Launch Roundup: SpaceX to launch Galaxy 37; China to launch FY-3F” »

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has successfully placed the commercial communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit, adding 500 gigabits per second capacity to the network’s services.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has successfully placed in geosynchronous orbit the world’s heaviest commercial communications satellite, Jupiter-3, Space News.

SpaceX

Continue reading “Jupiter-3: World’s heaviest communication satellite is now in orbit” »

SpaceX launched the world’s heaviest commercial communications satellite atop a Falcon Heavy rocket on Friday. The triple-core rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A with the Jupiter 3/EchoStar 24 satellite at 11:04 p.m. EDT (0304 UTC Saturday).

The successful launch came after a scrub on Wednesday and a 48-hour delay to replace a stuck liquid oxygen valve on the rocket’s port-side booster. After a week of stormy conditions on the Florida Space Coast the weather improved and the rocket lifted off in calm conditions, with just a thin layer of cloud in the sky.

It was the seventh mission for the Falcon Heavy and the third flight of the rocket this year. The Falcon Heavy’s twin side boosters, which have made two previous flights, returned to SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 & 2 punching through a thin layer of cloud and announcing their arrival with sonic booms. The rocket’s core stage required all its capacity to loft the giant satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit and was not recovered.

The day before, SpaceX was still able to send the Jupiter-3 satellite into space using a Falcon Heavy rocket. A few days earlier, the launch was cancelled for unknown reasons when the countdown stopped at the 65-second mark.

Here’s What We Know

Falcon Heavy failed to set a world record for payload mass. The minibus-sized Jupiter 3 weighs more than 9,000kg, and Hughes Network Systems calls it the world’s largest commercial communications satellite. But the record belongs to Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket, which sent two satellites into orbit weighing a combined 10.2 tonnes. This happened two years ago.

Making only its seventh flight, the triple-core Falcon Heavy put on a spectacular overnight show with dramatic side-by-side booster landings.

Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, is set to launch an internet connection service in Bangladesh to connect geographically isolated (hard to reach) or disaster-affected populations with uninterrupted high-speed Internet.

Starlink provided two devices for a three-month test run, State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak told Dhaka Tribune after the meeting.

One of the devices will be installed on a bus while another device will be installed on a remote island in Bangladesh to test the compatibility of this internet service.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will get closer than ever before to Jupiter’s fiery moon, Io, this weekend.

On Sunday (July 30), the solar-powered mission will come within 13,700 miles (22,000 km) of Io’s volcanic surface. This Jovian satellite is just slightly larger than Earth’s moon, making it the fourth largest moon in our solar system.

How do we communicate with spacecraft? For decades, satellites have beamed data back to Earth by way of radio waves, with a network of ground-based antennas collecting the incoming information. Now, we’re exploring laser communications, technology that will allow us to receive more data from farther than ever before — faster, too. NASA space communications expert Risha George tells us more. Credit: NASA

NASA is also developing ways to communicate with invisible infrared lasers.

Laser communications offer missions higher data rates than ever before, allowing us to transmit more data at once.