Lifeboat Foundation

The Federal Communications Commission has signed off on SpaceX’s plan for its Starlink satellites to supply internet access to moving vehicles.

The FCC’s order comes after the company has already signed deals with airline carriers including Hawaiian Airlines and JSX to provide in-flight Wi-Fi to their passengers. Cruise line Royal Caribbean has also requested the service for its ships.

The approval covers a variety of transport including cars, plans and boats.

Continue reading “Starlink Wins FCC Approval to Supply Internet to Moving Vehicles” »

NASA blasted a nanosatellite barely bigger than a microwave oven into outer space Tuesday, part of a landmark mission to return humans to the Moon.

A rocket carrying the tiny CAPSTONE module successfully launched from New Zealand’s eastern Mahia Peninsula to a deafening blast and a wash of fiery propulsion.

SpaceX won approval from the Federal Communications Commission to let its Starlink satellites send broadband internet to moving vehicles on Thursday.

If you’re ready for connectivity on the move, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband may soon be the answer. The US Federal Communications Commission on Thursday gave the internet provider the greenlight to provide service on moving vehicles, boats and planes.

The new authority should help SpaceX meet “the growing user demands that now require connectivity while on the move,” wrote FCC international bureau chief Tom Sullivan wrote in the approval, “whether driving an RV across the country, moving a freighter from Europe to a U.S. port, or while on a domestic or international flight.”

Earlier this year, Starlink began selling Starlink for RVs, but the service wasn’t designed to work on the move — it was intended for users traveling to areas with slow or no broadband alternatives.

SpaceX’s Starlink provided the fastest satellite internet in the world.

Starlink has been equally praised in recent months for helping civilians in Ukraine and criticized for making astronomical work harder to the point it might endanger humanity.

Continue reading “An off-grid Starlink user achieves ‘infinite WiFi’ with 300 watts of solar” »

Black carbon in the atmosphere is like dressing Earth in a black shirt on a sunny day.

In new research published earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) simulates the effect of greatly increased spaceflight on the stratosphere. The results show that planned spaceflight over the next few decades could raise Earth’s temperature, change global air currents, and dampen the ozone layer. The study appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmosphere.

These days, it’s hard to pull up any technology-or science-oriented news site without seeing something about Elon Musk’s satellite launches, his plans to send many ships to Mars, NASA’s big slate of upcoming Artemis mission launches, the rise of private spaceflight, and the increase in national spaceflight from previously unrepresented nations. It’s a huge moment for space, so traffic is about to get worse.

Continue reading “Spaceflight Will Warm Earth’s Stratosphere 4 Degrees, Study Finds” »

The craft is about to get very acquainted with an intriguing lunar orbit.

CAPSTONE is about the size of a microwave oven, but it’s blazing a trail for Artemis and NASA’s next crewed space station.

Watch the launch from New Zealand of CAPSTONE, a new pathfinder CubeSat that will explore a unique orbit around the Moon!

The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, will be the first spacecraft to fly a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon, where the pull of gravity from Earth and the Moon interact to allow for a nearly-stable orbit. CAPSTONE’s test of this orbit will lead the way for our future Artemis lunar outpost called Gateway.

Continue reading “CAPSTONE Launch to the Moon (Official NASA Broadcast)” »

Most folks probably don’t think of satellites as capable of sinking, but according to the European Space Agency they can and do.

Space news site Space. com reported Thursday that ESA scientists had to raise the Swarm constellation satellites, which measure Earth’s magnetic field, because they were sinking in chaotic space weather.

“In the last five, six years, the satellites were sinking about two and a half kilometers [1.5 miles] a year,” Swarm mission managerAnja Stromme, ESA’s told Space.com. “But since December last year, they have been virtually diving. The sink rate between December and April has been 20 kilometers [12 miles] per year.”