Lifeboat Foundation

WASHINGTON — When the Pentagon revealed last week that a high-flying, Chinese balloon was spotted over the United States, officials said they didn’t expect the airship would add much value to the intelligence China is already gathering through its network of spy satellites.

“Our best assessment at the moment is that whatever the surveillance payload is on this balloon, it does not create significant value added over and above what the [People’s Republic of China] is likely able to collect through things like satellites in low Earth orbit,” a senior defense official told reporters Feb. 2.

While it’s unclear what information the uncrewed airship gathered before the Pentagon shot it down Feb. 4, experts say balloons loitering at high altitudes can offer some advantages over satellites and drones — or could at least augment their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

Or their parts, at least, which look decidedly skeletal for satellite struts.

Researchers from UNSW Sydney have analyzed millions of satellite photos to observe changes in beaches across the Pacific Ocean. The findings, published in Nature Geoscience today (Feb. 10), reveal for the first time how coastlines respond to different phases of the El-Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.

ENSO is a natural climate phenomenon that causes variations in sea surface temperatures over the Pacific Ocean. The warming phase, known as El Niño, and the cooling phase, known as La Niña, affect weather patterns across different coastlines depending on the cycle.

Continue reading “Beach erosion: Satellites reveal how climate cycles impact coastlines” »

The five-year contract is worth up to $192 million and will provide high-resolution electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery.

New information about an emerging technique that could track microplastics from space has been uncovered by researchers at the University of Michigan. It turns out that satellites are best at spotting soapy or oily residue, and microplastics appear to tag along with that residue.

Microplastics—tiny flecks that can ride ocean currents hundreds or thousands of miles from their point of entry—can harm sea life and marine ecosystems, and they’re extremely difficult to track and clean up. However, a 2021 discovery raised the hope that satellites could offer day-by-day timelines of where microplastics enter the water, how they move and where they tend to collect, for prevention and clean-up efforts.

Continue reading “Tracking ocean microplastics from space” »

Space logistics and orbital transportation company D-Orbit launched Starfield, the eighth commercial mission of their proprietary orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) ION Satellite Carrier (ION), and the first one in a midinclination orbit.

The OTV lifted off January 31st, 2023, at 8:15 a.m. PT (16:15 UTC) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and was successfully deployed 57 minutes later into an approximately 340km altitude and 70-degree inclination orbit.

ION is a versatile and cost-effective OTV designed to precisely deploy satellites and perform orbital demonstrations of third-party payloads hosted onboard. After the first commercial mission in September 2020, D-Orbit has completed seven more missions, including one featuring two IONs.

The Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, SpaceX, on Monday announced that it has commenced the operation of Starlink services in Nigeria, the first African country to receive such.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX launched in 2019. It provides satellite internet access coverage to about 46 countries, which is also targeting the global mobile phone service after 2023.

Continue reading “SpaceX announces Nigerian operation, first in Africa” »

Here’s some interesting SpaceX News!

For the last few months, SpaceX has been having trouble launching Starlink satellites, once going almost two months between Starlink launches. The problem wasn’t that SpaceX was launching less often, but that SpaceX had a surge in business. The long-term solution was to go from 61 launches last year to about 100 launches this year. (SpaceX only did 31 launches in 2021, so they are growing rapidly!)

This month was much better for Starlink launches, with 3 this month. The key to squeezing in 3 launches was that SpaceX did 7 launches this month which is a 7 12 = 84 launch rate, definitely higher than last’s years 61 launch rate.

Continue reading “What Is Wright’s Law” »

For years the dream of competition in the world of home internet has been just that; a dream. Now in 2023, we are starting to see it become a reality. Wireless internet from places like T-Mobile and Verizon has come on strong recently. New faster satellite internet from SpaceX, and fiber internet have all expanded recently, meaning many Americans who may have had two options in the past now have 4 or 5 options.

Now Amazon wants to join that list by offering high speed internet from space, similar to SpaceX’s Starlink service.

Here is everything we know about Amazon’s new home internet service: