Lifeboat Foundation

Can technology be developed to identify small objects in space? This is something the U.S. Air Force hopes to address and they recently awarded a $5 million grant to a Georgia State University professor with the goal of identifying, charting, and imaging small objects in space, also known as Space Domain Awareness (SDA). This grant holds the potential to improve SDA regarding small objects between the Earth and the Moon, which could benefit national security as well as observational astronomy.

This grant comes as the number of objects launched into space continues to increase every year. For example, while the total of objects launched into space worldwide in 2016 was 221, that number jumped to 456 in 2017, experienced a slight decrease to 454 in 2018, increased to 586 in 2019, but then experienced massive spikes to 1,274 in 2020, 1,813 in 2021, and 2,478 in 2022, more than a tenfold increase in six years. So many objects not only pose threats to observational astronomy but to national security, as well.

“Detecting objects in the space region between where many communications satellites are located extending to the distance at which the Moon orbits the Earth presents a substantial challenge,” said Dr. Stuart Jefferies, who is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University, and recipient of the grant. “The faintness of these objects makes observation difficult using ground-based telescopes, as they are starved of photons from the target of interest, creating a potential vulnerability that adversaries could exploit.”

Amazon announced today they have bought 3 Falcon 9 launches to deliver their Project Kuiper internet satellites to low Earth orbit in mid-2025.

This wouldn’t be the first time SpaceX has launched a competitor satellite as they have now launched 4 times for one of their other competitors, OneWeb, with a total of 136 satellites delivered to orbit.

Amazon recently made the decision to move up the launch of their first Project Kuiper satellites from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket which has faced numerous delays to an Atlas V that launched on October 6th.

The addition of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 brings a new dynamic to Amazon’s Project Kuiper, introducing unexpected competition within the space industry.

Amazon, SpaceX

Continue reading “Amazon buys rival SpaceX’s launches for its satellite internet” »

Billionaire CEO Elon Musk on Friday said that his rocket manufacturing company SpaceX launched the satellite systems of its rivals without favoring their own.

The CEO took to X to clarify the same after SpaceX entered into a contract to launch Amazon.com Inc’s AMZN Kuiper satellites, aimed at providing satellite internet along the lines of SpaceX’s Starlink.

What Happened: Under the newly announced contract, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch thrice to deliver Kuiper satellites to low-Earth orbit starting mid-2025. Project Kuiper is a project by the e-commerce giant aimed at providing broadband with the help of a network of satellites in low-Earth orbit like Starlink.

Dec 1 (Reuters) — Amazon (AMZN.O) on Friday said it booked three Falcon 9 launches with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to help deploy the ecommerce giant’s Project Kuiper satellite network, tapping a rival in the satellite internet business for its multi-billion dollar launch campaign.

Amazon aims to build Kuiper as a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to beam broadband internet globally and compete with SpaceX’s Starlink network, which already has some 5,000 satellites providing nearly global coverage.

Amazon, which vowed in 2019 to invest $10 billion into the project, will put an unspecified number of Kuiper satellites on three Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX beginning in mid-2025, the company said Friday.

The network’s total capacity will surpass 500 Gbps by 2025.

While China is already marching ahead with its internet infrastructure, the country has announced the completion of its first high-orbit satellite communication network, which aims to provide fast and reliable internet service within its territory and to several countries along its Belt and Road initiative.

The network, which consists of three high-throughput satellites named ChinaSat 16, 19, and 26, is expected to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink, a low-orbit satellite system developed by the American aerospace company, according to a Beijing-based communications expert.

Continue reading “China soars Starlink-challenger satellite network to counter Elon Musk” »

Astronomers have discovered a rare in-sync solar system with six planets moving like a grand cosmic orchestra, untouched by outside forces since their birth billions of years ago.

The find, announced Wednesday, can help explain how solar systems across the Milky Way galaxy came to be. This one is 100 light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. A pair of planet-hunting satellites — NASA’s Tess and the European Space Agency’s Cheops — teamed up for the observations that discovered the solar system.

Derrick Pitts, the chief astronomer at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, told CBS News that the planets are a rare example of how researchers “think solar systems are born.”

Old rocket parts, broken satellites, lost screws and other space debris have been floating near Earth’s orbit for more than 50 years. Innovative solutions are needed to remedy this dangerous situation.

SpaceX is known for its vertical integration, but one component it’s been outsourcing is parachutes — until earlier this month, when the company quietly acquired parachute vendor Pioneer Aerospace after its parent company went bankrupt. The Information first reported the news.

This is the second known acquisition for SpaceX, which acquired small satellite startup Swarm in 2021 for a $524 million mostly-stock deal. Pioneer is coming much more cheaply: SpaceX has snapped it up for just $2.2 million, according to a bankruptcy filing by Pioneer’s parent company in Florida.