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Category: satellites – Page 103

Now, in what would be the biggest international step yet towards addressing these concerns, diplomats at a United Nations forum next month might discuss whether humanity has a right to ‘dark and quiet skies’. The debate could initiate a framework for how scientists and the public would deal with the flood of new satellites — with many more expected.

Working with the United Nations, scientists hope to establish standards for satellite ‘megaconstellations’ and reduce disruption of astronomical observations.

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Amazon acquires Facebook’s Satellite Internet team!

Project Kuiper going strong to compete SpaceX’s StarLink, OneWeb and Telesat.

The deal bolsters Amazon’s $10 billion effort to develop low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites capable of delivering high-speed broadband internet around the globe, while marking the end of Facebook’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts to do the same.

Facebook’s team, which joined Amazon’s existing 500-person operation in April, included physicists as well as hardware and software engineers who have experience working on aeronautical and wireless systems, according to The Information.

The talent acquisition deal included some intellectual property developed by the team, as well as equipment and facilities, Facebook told Insider. Other terms were not disclosed.

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According to NASA, the solar storm is travelling towards Earth at a velocity of 1.6 million km/hr and the speed might even increase more.

The satellites in the Earth’s upper atmosphere are also expected to get impacted by the incoming flares. This will directly impact GPS navigation, mobile phone signal and satellite TV. The power grids can also be impacted due to the solar flares.

On the positive side, the solar flares will create an amplified view of Aurora lights in North or South Pole. The people living near the poles will get to experience these lights.

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Featured Image Source: netvault.net.au.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk recently shared that the company is already providing Starlink Beta broadband internet service to over 69420 users globally out of over half-a-million customers who pre-ordered the internet service via Starlink.com. According to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, the Starlink constellation is currently actively beaming its signal to users in 11 countries (now 12), including portions of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand. More European countries and regions in the United States will have coverage during the second half of 2021 and early 2022.

This week, SpaceX e-mailed potential customers in the European country of Denmark –“Starlink is now available in limited supply in Denmark!” the e-mail reads. “Users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s [megabits per second] over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all,” SpaceX wrote in the e-mail. “As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically.” To date, SpaceX has launched approximately 1740 internet-beaming Starlink satellites out of over 12000 that will be part of the global broadband constellation.

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The first five payloads from the Space Development Agency, an organization charged with rapidly infusing emerging technologies into the U.S. military’s space programs, are among more than 80 satellites awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral Tuesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Established in 2019, the Space Development Agency plans to deploy hundreds of small satellites to enable improved communications for the U.S. military. SDA’s strategy leans on the rapid development of new commercial space technology, including new types of sensors and cheaper, easier-to-produce small satellites that can be deployed in large constellations in low Earth orbit.

SDA plans to launch the first tranche of 28 satellites to provide initial infrared missile detection and low-latency data relay services in late 2022 and early 2023. Twenty of those satellites, part of the “transport layer,” will be developed by Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems for communications support. The other eight “tracking” satellites will be supplied by SpaceX and L3Harris for missile detection and tracking.

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An international group of astronomers has created images with never-before-seen detail of a galaxy cluster with a black hole at its center, traveling at high speed along an intergalactic “road of matter.” The findings also support existing theories of the origins and evolution of the universe.

The concept that roads of thin gas connect clusters of galaxies across the universe has been difficult to prove until recently, because the matter in these ‘roads’ is so sparse it eluded the gaze of even the most sensitive instruments. Following the 2020 discovery of an intergalactic thread of gas at least 50 million light-years long, scientists have now developed images with an unprecedented level of detail of the Northern Clump—a cluster of galaxies found on this thread.

By combining imagery from various sources including CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope, SRG/eROSITA, XMM-Newton and Chandra satellites, and DECam , the scientists could make out a large galaxy at the center of the clump, with a black hole at its center.

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