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Archive for the ‘satellites’ category: Page 56

Mar 25, 2018

Flight-Proven Falcon 9 Completes Static Fire Test for 5th Iridium-NEXT Mission

Posted by in categories: drones, health, satellites

A previously-used Falcon 9 booster soared to life at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on Sunday for its Static Fire test ahead of lifting the fifth set of Iridium-NEXT communications satellites on Thursday, marking the start of a string of Falcon 9 missions lined up for March and April. Liftoff is targeting 14:19 UTC on March 29 to boost the number of Iridium-NEXT satellites in orbit to 50 as the Virginia-based communications company continues pushing toward having the full Iridium-NEXT constellation in operation by the end of summer.

Sunday’s Static Fire test occurred near the opening of the day’s test window at 7 a.m. and was expected to run for seven seconds to exercise the nine previously-flown Merlin 1D engines of Booster 1041, gearing up for its second Low Earth Orbit mission. The booster was first in action for the third Iridium-NEXT mission in October 2017 and successfully returned via a Drone Ship landing in the Pacific Ocean as SpaceX has yet to conduct its first return-to-launch-site recovery from Vandenberg.

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Mar 16, 2018

Vanguard I has spent six decades in orbit, more than any other craft

Posted by in category: satellites

As of this month, the US satellite Vanguard I has spent 60 years in orbit and it remains the oldest man-made object in space. Vanguard I was the fourth satellite launched into orbit — following the USSR’s Sputnik I and II and the US’ Explorer I. But none of the first three remain in orbit today and though Vanguard I can’t send signals back to Earth anymore, it’s still providing valuable data for researchers.

The first two attempts to launch the first Vanguard satellite failed, but on March 17th, 1958, Vanguard I was successfully placed into orbit. It was manufactured by the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which published a lookback this week honoring the satellite’s 60 years of service, and was part of a project that aimed to study Earth’s geophysical phenomena from space. The Vanguard Project was established as part of the US contribution to the International Geophysical Year — a multi-national effort to study geophysical phenomena during a period of time when the sun’s sunspot activity would be at a peak.

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Mar 14, 2018

Air Force awards big launch contracts to SpaceX and ULA

Posted by in category: satellites

WASHINGTON — The Air Force on Wednesday awarded two major launch contracts to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

Under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, SpaceX received a $290 million firm-fixed-price contract for three GPS 3 missions. ULA was awarded a $351 million firm-fixed-price deal for Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)-8 and AFSPC-12 satellites launches.

The contracts include launch vehicle production, mission integration, launch operations and spaceflight certification. The missions will be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

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Mar 10, 2018

The FCC says a space startup launched four tiny satellites into orbit without permission

Posted by in categories: government, satellites

Satellite operators must get government approval to launch hardware into orbit. The FCC says that Swarm Technologies launched four small satellites in January without authorization.

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Mar 9, 2018

Meet the Satellites That Can Pinpoint Methane and Carbon Dioxide Leaks

Posted by in category: satellites

European and Canadian orbiters can work together to catch wayward emissions.

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Mar 9, 2018

Spacewatch: engine fuelled by air will enable low-flying class of satellites

Posted by in category: satellites

Electric thruster sucks in the scarce air molecules at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, using them as propellant to fight drag.

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Mar 6, 2018

New thruster tech converts air molecules into fuel for orbiting satellites

Posted by in categories: particle physics, satellites

The European Space Agency created the world’s first thruster which allows satellites to remain in orbit for years longer than they currently do. The secret? The thruster runs on particles of air in the atmosphere.

Others have tried to improve the staying power of satellites before, but most are still limited by the amount of fuel they can carry. The new ion thruster “breathes” the rare air particles in the top of the atmosphere, allowing the satellites to remain without immediate need for refueling.

The thruster was developed by an ESA team and built by SITAEL, a private company in Italy. The air particles bounce away from satellites normally, but the thruster collects them and gives them an electric charge, after which they are ejected to provide thrust that counteracts atmospheric drag.

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Mar 2, 2018

This is what some of the earliest stars in the universe might have looked like

Posted by in category: satellites

Meanwhile in space: moon activity and satellites watching satellite launches.

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Mar 2, 2018

GPS Isn’t Very Secure. Here’s Why We Need A Backup

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, drones, military, mobile phones, satellites

That’s not a lot to you. If your watch is off by 13.7 microseconds, you’ll make it to your important meeting just fine. But it wasn’t so nice for the first-responders in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Louisiana, whose GPS devices wouldn’t lock with satellites. Nor for the FAA ground transceivers that got fault reports. Nor the Spanish digital TV networks that had receiver issues. Nor the BBC digital radio listeners, whose British broadcast got disrupted. It caused about 12 hours of problems—none too huge, all annoying. But it was a solid case study for what can happen when GPS messes up.

The 24 satellites that keep GPS services running in the US aren’t especially secure; they’re vulnerable to screw-ups, or attacks of the cyber or corporeal kind. And as more countries get closer to having their own fully functional GPS networks, the threat to our own increases. Plus, GPS satellites don’t just enable location and navigation services: They also give ultra-accurate timing measurements to utility grid operators, stock exchanges, data centers, and cell networks. To mess them up is to mess those up. So private companies and the military are coming to terms with the consequences of a malfunction—and they’re working on backups.

The 2016 event was an accidental glitch with an easily identifiable cause—an oops. Harder to deal with are the gotchas. Jamming and spoofing, on a small scale, are both pretty cheap and easy. You can find YouTube videos of mischievous boys jamming drones, and when Pokemon GO users wanted to stay in their parents’ basements, they sent their own phones fake signals saying they were at the Paris mall. Which means countries, and organized hacking groups, definitely can mess with things on a larger scale. Someone can jam a GPS signal, blocking, say, a ship from receiving information from satellites. Or they can spoof a signal, sending a broadcast that looks like a legit hello from a GPS satellite but is actually a haha from the hacker next-door.

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Mar 1, 2018

Next-Generation Weather Satellite Launches to Track Extreme Storms

Posted by in category: satellites

A powerful new weather satellite launched today (March 1) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, heading toward a perch above the eastern Pacific Ocean to monitor extreme weather as it develops.

The satellite, called GOES-S (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S), lifted off on ULA’s Atlas V rocket at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT).

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will operate GOES-S in partnership with NASA. The Lockheed Martin-built satellite will join GOES-East, currently in orbit, to provide a broad, high-definition view of weather on Earth. It is the second in a series of four advanced weather satellites that will reside in geostationary orbit — hanging in place over one spot on Earth as they orbit and the world turns. [GOES-S: NOAA’s Next-Gen Weather Satellite in Photos].

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