Lifeboat Foundation

The largest private automaker in China is getting into the satellite business. Chinese automotive giant Geely has broadened its reach to include everything from trucking, to high-speed trains, to passenger drones, to Volvo over the last decade or so. But its newest effort could tie those things all together, as Geely just announced it’s going to build its own satellite network to enable what it calls a “smart three-dimensional mobility ecosystem.”

Geely announced late Monday that it will erect a satellite production facility and testing center in the port city of Taizhou in the Zhejiang province that the Chinese giant calls home. The facility will be capable of building a “variety of different satellite models,” some of which may be for non-Geely entities.

Geely says it will start launching the satellite network as soon as the end of this year, but did not say how big it will be. Reuters reports that the company is pumping around $326 million into the project, and will eventually make 500 satellites a year.

Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin has completed the first nose cone of its future orbital rocket, the New Glenn — and new video of the hardware shows the true enormity of this piece of equipment. With a diameter of 7 meters, or 22 feet, the cavernous nose cone is so giant that it can completely house Blue Origin’s smaller New Shepard rocket.

The nose cone, or payload fairing, is a crucial piece of any rocket heading to space. It sits on top of the vehicle and surrounds whatever payload or satellite the rocket is carrying, acting as a shield during the ascent through the atmosphere. Once in space, the payload breaks away and exposes the satellite so that the payload can be deployed by the rocket.

Continue reading “Blue Origin shows off the finished massive nose cone for its future New Glenn rocket” »

DARPA has established a new partnership with U.S. industry to jointly develop and deploy advanced robotic capabilities in space. The agency has signed an Other Transactions for Prototypes agreement with Space Logistics, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation, as its commercial partner for the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program.

The RSGS program’s objective is to create a dexterous robotic operational capability in geosynchronous orbit that can extend satellite life spans, enhance resilience, and improve reliability for current U.S. space infrastructure. The first step is the RSGS program’s development of a dexterous robotic servicer, which a commercial enterprise will then operate.

“DARPA remains committed to a commercial partnership for the execution of the RSGS mission,” said Dr. Michael Leahy, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. “Building upon the successes of the DARPA Orbital Express mission and the recent successful docking of Space Logistics’ Mission Extension Vehicle-1, the agency seeks to bring dexterous on-orbit servicing to spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), and to establish that inspection, repair, life extension, and improvement of our valuable GEO assets can be made possible and even routine.”

SAN FRANCISCO – PredaSAR, a Florida startup led by retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Roger Teague, raised $25 million in seed funding for its plan to build a constellation of at least 44 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites.

“The Defense Department has been after a space-based radar solution for many years,” Teague told SpaceNews. “There’s a need for a SAR moving-target indicator… I believe there is going to be strong market demand.”

PredaSAR was founded in 2019 by Marc Bell, an entrepreneur and investor who is the chairman and co-founder of Terran Orbital, which owns Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. Bell now serves as PredaSAR’s chairman. Before closing the seed funding round, PredaSAR hired Tyvak to build its first two satellites, Bell said.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory – a satellite that warns of incoming space storms that could knacker telecommunications on Earth – is up and running again after being shut down for eight months by a technical glitch.

Launched in 2015 aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the bird, known as DSCOVR for short, was sent into orbit between the Earth and the Sun. Circling at a distance of about a million miles away from terra firma, satellite sports instruments designed to detect approaching geomagnetic storms, and alerts us before highly energetic particles from the solar wind pelt our planet.

Boeing is offering signing bonuses up to $30,000 for experienced satellite engineers and procurement specialists, saying Friday needs the staff “to help build assets for the U.S. Air Force and its allies.”

The company posted a notice about its hiring on LinkedIn, listing more than open 75 jobs for what Boeing said were its “rapidly growing” satellite program efforts.

“We have an urgent need for Security Cleared Satellite Engineers to help build assets for the U.S. Air Force and its Allies. We’re offering a potential $30k sign-on bonus,” the posting said.

Two unmanned commercial satellites have docked in orbit for the first time. On February 25, Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1) linked up with the Intelsat 901 (IS-901) communication satellite at an altitude of 22,416 mi (36,076 km) above the Earth as part of a project to extend the service life of satellites that are running low on propellants.

The building and launching of satellites is extremely expensive, so it’s more than just frustrating when a perfectly good spacecraft has to be disposed of or abandoned simply because it has run out of the propellants needed to keep it in its proper orbit and pointed at Earth. There have been a number of solutions proposed for this problem – in this case Northrop’s MEV-1 is designed to match orbits with aging satellites, dock, and take over the job of maintaining orbit and attitude.

Continue reading “Space docking first gives commercial satellites a new lease of life” »

At 35 meters, the wingspan of the new BAE Systems aircraft equals that of a Boeing 737, yet the plane weighs in at just 150 kilograms, including a 15 kg payload. The unmanned plane, dubbed the PHASA-35 (Persistent High-Altitude Solar Aircraft), made its maiden voyage on 10 February at the Royal Australian Air Force Woomera Test Range in South Australia.

“It flew for just under an hour—enough time to successfully test its aerodynamics, autopilot system, and maneuverability,” says Phil Varty, business development leader of emerging products at BAE Systems. “We’d previously tested other sub-systems such as the flight control system in smaller models of the plane in the U.K. and Australia, so we’d taken much of the risk out of the craft before the test flight.”

The prototype aircraft uses gallium arsenide–based triple-junction solar cell panels manufactured by MicroLink Devices in Niles, Ill. MicroLink claims an energy conversion efficiency of 31 percent for these specialist panels.

In 2019, tiny satellites found all the gaps in space regulation—and flew right on through.