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Category: satellites – Page 49

SpaceX plans to launch two Falcon 9 rockets hours apart from Florida and California. Starlink group 6–3 will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with a planned launch time of 12:41 AM ET (04:41 UTC) and from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Iridium OneWeb rideshare launch at 6:19 AM PT (13:19 UTC).

First up, SpaceX will launch booster 1,076 on its 5th flight to deliver 22 Starlink V2 mini-satellites to a 43 degree orbit inclination. The 22 Starlink V2 mini-satellites come in at a combined ~17.6 metric tons, potentially setting the record for the most mass to low Earth orbit for a Falcon 9. This shows a gradual increase in the confidence of the Falcon 9 to deliver high-mass payloads to orbit while maintaining the ability to recover the first stage. On station for this recovery is the droneship “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” stationed roughly 636 km downrange, just East of the Bahamas.

The current weather outlook for this launch has a 60% chance of violating launch criteria at the opening of the launch window. However, this launch has three more opportunities, 1:13 AM ET (05:31 UTC), 2:19 AM ET (06:19 UTC), and 3:09 AM ET (07:09 UTC) in which the weather improves to a 40% chance of violating launch criteria.

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It “lasts more than three times as long” as lithium-ion, according to EnerVenue CEO Jorg Heinemann.

With the advent of space tourism for the world’s wealthiest and a looming global recession, there has been a predictable increase in arguments against public spending on space technologies.

However, those calling to halt space operations often ignore the immense benefits space technologies bring us here on Earth. Obvious examples come in the form of GPS and the many satellites used to investigate the effects of climate change.

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After a relatively low period of solar activity, the Sun sprung back into action yesterday, May 16. A near-X-class solar flare eruption occurred on the southeastern limb of the Sun. Even as the explosion was on the horizon of the Sun and a part of it was eclipsed due to its edge, the solar flare had a major impact on the Earth. Ultraviolet radiation ionized the upper atmosphere and caused a shortwave radio blackout over North America and the northern parts of South America. And now, fears are rising over another major solar storm that could be headed toward the Earth.

As per a SpaceWeather.com report, “Earth-orbiting satellites detected an M9.6-class solar flare from a sunspot hiding behind the sun’s southeastern limb. It was only percentage points away from being an X-flare. The event could herald a period of renewed solar activity as the sunspot turns toward Earth”.

The radio blackout was so severe that several reports highlighted that most of the shortwave frequencies faded away when the flare erupted. This would have affected mariners, amateur radio operators, and aviators. The blackout persisted for about an hour before subsiding.

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This article gives a clear and chilling assessment of the impact of the Ukraine conflict on the future of collaborative space exploration; in doing so it highlights how humankind’s habitual tendency towards wars severally slow, if not completely halt, our urgent reach for the stars. As that old warrior Churchill once said„ ‘Jaw, jaw is always better than War, war!’

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions homeless and displaced and billions of dollars of damage in infrastructure. The conflict has also had less immediate but significant impacts on other areas, including on the space industries of Ukraine and Russia, but also globally in terms of the launch market, spaceflight activity and international cooperation.

In the wake of the start of the conflict on Feb. 24, 2022, and resulting international backlash against Russia, the then-head of the Russian space agency Dmitry Rogozin threatened to end its cooperation with the West on the International Space Station (ISS) program over sanctions imposed on Russia. He also issued a threat to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk for the company’s role in providing connectivity through its Starlink satellites.

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This animation was created by using one day’s worth of data from Europe’s Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 (MTG-I1) between March 18–19, 2023. Images of the full Earth disc are produced by MTG-I1 every 10 minutes. Credit: EUMETSAT/ESA

The Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 (MTG-I1) was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket on Dec. 13, 2022, and is the first of a new generation of satellites set to revolutionize weather forecasting in Europe, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

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Ocean microplastics have become a major source of concern, especially since they are so hard to track down, but researchers found an ingenious solution using satellites.

Ocean plastics have become a major source of concern for evironmental conservationists and public health professionals in recent years, and there hasn’t been a good way to track how these plastics are moving or their concentrations. But now, researchers from the University of Michigan have developed an ingenious way to track the ebb and flow of these microplastics around the world thanks to NASA satellites.

Solarseven/iStock.

Microplastics are the remnant pieces of larger plastics that have disintegrated over time due to chemical and physical processes, and are typically measured as less than 5mm in size. The underlying plastic compounds remain intact even as the plastic fiber or particle gets physically smaller, and plastics do not chemically decompose.

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As per the company, traditional rovers may not be able to traverse everywhere and perform tasks like their drone-like hopper.

For decades, Earth’s natural satellite has been one of the most popular destinations for space exploration. The upcoming Artemis missions, along with the excitement on establishing a human settlement on the Moon, have collectively boosted the lunar economy market substantially in recent years.

Several startups have been preparing to offer their technological solutions to gain a better understanding of the valuable resources available and provide services to future astronauts.

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A SpaceX rocket carrying more than four dozen Starlink satellites launched early Wednesday afternoon from the California coast.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off just after 1 p.m. California time from Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Santa Barbara. The rocket carried 51 Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit.

You can watch the launch here.

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Europe’s newest weather satellite has snapped an image of the Earth that reveals our planet’s incredible beauty, despite gathering clouds.

The image taken by Meteosat Third Generation — Imager 1 (MTG-I1) shows conditions over Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic to an incredible level of detail and demonstrates that the satellite is set to live up to its promise of revolutionizing weather forecasting including the prediction of severe weather.

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