November will bring plenty to see in the night sky, including meteor showers rich with fireballs and a celestial alignment with the moon.
Category: satellites – Page 8
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin Corp announced Oct. 30 it has completed the acquisition of small satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital. The approximately $450 million acquisition deal deepens Lockheed Martin’s foothold in the commercial satellite sector and culminates a partnership that began in 2017.
The acquisition positions Lockheed to leverage Terran’s expertise in low-cost satellite production for both military and commercial ventures. Lockheed Martin stressed that Terran Orbital, now rebranded as “Terran Orbital, a Lockheed Martin Company,” will continue to operate as a merchant supplier for the broader space industry.
The completed acquisition caps Lockheed Martin’s years-long relationship with Terran Orbital, formerly Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. The smallsat specialist, founded in 2011, initially focused on nanosatellites and cubesats, but transitioned to building larger satellite platforms after it rebranded in 2022. That shift in focus followed Terran Orbital’s public listing through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, which aimed to accelerate its commercial growth.
Twenty Starlink satellites were launched into space early Wednesday morning when a SpaceX rocket launched from the Santa Barbara County coast.
The rocket soared over the Southern California coast after the 5:07 a.m. launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Santa Barbara.
Halloween is on Thursday, Oct. 31 — but parts of the Treasure Coast may get a nice treat the night before.
SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, Oct. 30, to launch another payload of Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Depending on weather and visibility, parts of Indian River County might see a nice streak in the sky.
Below are suggestions on where to watch the rocket launch from this area and other things to know. If there are changes to the launch schedule, this story will be updated.
Dr. Lauren Schurmeier: “The methane clathrate crust warms Titan’s interior and causes surprisingly rapid topographic relaxation, which results in crater shallowing at a rate that is close to that of fast-moving warm glaciers on Earth.”
How does Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have such a methane-rich atmosphere? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how methane that resides with Titan’s crust could be responsible for the lack of depth in Titan’s impact craters, which could explain why Titan’s atmosphere has so much methane, as well. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of Titan and whether it could host life as we know it.
For the study, the researchers used computer models to simulate the formation and evolution of impact craters on Titan, of which only approximately 90 have been identified via satellite imagery from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
“This was very surprising because, based on other moons, we expect to see many more impact craters on the surface and craters that are much deeper than what we observe on Titan,” said Dr. Lauren Schurmeier, who is a research associate in the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) and lead author of the study. “We realized something unique to Titan must be making them become shallower and disappear relatively quickly.”
This follows the failure of another satellite from the same series that may have been due to a meteoroid impact.
196K likes, — kallaway on October 10, 2024: This company lets you order sunlight from an app. Wild.
It’s like Uber Eats for the Sun.
The company is called Reflect Orbital.
These two guys figured out if they launch reflective satellites and position them in just the right constellation, at just the right angle, they can beam sunlight to any spot on Earth.
NASA and NOAA have declared the Sun’s solar maximum, noting increased sunspot activity and heightened solar events that influence Earth’s space weather.
This period is linked to significant geomagnetic storms and aurora displays, with potential disruptions to satellites and communication systems.
Solar maximum announced by NASA and NOAA.
So, does anyone thinks that perhaps there are too many sats in orbit? what will be when they all deploy? Earth Sky 1956 clear of any sat at least of human origin and after that mayor astronomy problem with sats in orbit.
International competition is intensifying for the deployment of satellite constellations into orbit, notes Statista’s Katharina Buchholz.
Satellite constellations — the most well-known being SpaceX’s Starlink — are designed to provide high-speed global Internet access.
Starlink, launched in 2019, had more than 6,300 satellites in service at the beginning of September, out of 12,000 eventually scheduled to be deployed (or even 40,000 according to an announcement of a possible extension of the project).