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Category: satellites – Page 57

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite launched into Earth orbit on Friday, Dec. 16, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California, and engineers are working to prepare the mission to begin measuring the height of water on over 90% of Earth’s surface, providing a high-definition survey of our planet’s water for the first time.

But before it can do that, the satellite would need to unfold its large mast and antenna panels (see above) after successfully deploying the solar panel arrays that power the spacecraft. The mission monitors and controls the satellite using telemetry data, but it also equipped spacecraft with four customized commercial cameras to record the action.

The fully deployed shortly after launch, taking about 10 minutes.

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India’s space program is still in its early stages but has been making global headlines in recent years after ISRO’s launch vehicle launched a record-breaking 104 satellites in one go a few years ago. More recently, a private space tech company test-fired the world’s first 3D-printed rocket engine, which has a turnaround of just four days.

The next phase of the country’s space story includes human space flight, which was announced in 2018 and expected to be launched this year, coinciding with the 75th year of Indian independence. However, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works delaying the project by two years.

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SpaceX launched the first batch of a new generation of Starlink satellites into orbit early Wednesday (Dec. 28) and nailed a rocket landing at sea to mark a record 60th flight of the year.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 54 upgraded Starlink internet satellites — the first generation 2 (Gen2) versions of the SpaceX fleet — lit up the predawn sky with a smooth launch at 4:34 a.m. EST (0934 GMT) from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

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Dec 26 (Reuters) — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Monday that the company is now close to having 100 active Starlinks, the firm’s satellite internet service, in Iran, three months after he tweeted he would activate the service there amid protests around the Islamic country.

Musk said, “approaching 100 starlinks active in Iran”, in a tweet on Monday.

The billionaire had said in September that he would activate Starlink in Iran as part of a U.S.-backed effort “to advance internet freedom and the free flow of information” to Iranians.

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Future of in space manufacturing, next 10 years of cisLunar, getting kids involved in stem, and more with Joe Pawelski Architect of CisLunar.

Feedback/idea form for show.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdbZjVCZmJ-TLPWLCsI…sp=sf_link.

About Joe and CisLunar.
“We envision a future where humanity is enabled and empowered to expand beyond Earth to permanently and sustainably settle the Solar System.
A dynamic and robust industrial in-space economy is essential to this future.
CisLunar Industries is creating the critical metal processing capabilities required to support the in-space industrial value chain.”

Links.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-pawelski/
https://www.cislunarindustries.com/
[email protected].

PODCAST INFO:
The Learning With Lowell show is a series for the everyday mammal. In this show we’ll learn about leadership, science, and people building their change into the world. The goal is to dig deeply into people who most of us wouldn’t normally ever get to hear. The Host of the show – Lowell Thompson-is a lifelong autodidact, serial problem solver, and founder of startups.
LINKS
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzri06unR-lMXbl6sqWP_-Q
Youtube clips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-B5x371AzTGgK-_q3U_KfA
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lowell-thompson-2227b074
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LWThompson5
Website: https://www.learningwithlowell.com/
Podcast email: [email protected].

Timestamps show notes.

Continue reading “Space manufacturing pioneer Joe Pawelski shares his vision for the future — episode 147” | >

An interesting thing is happening at SpaceX. Last year they did $2 billion in revenue and Elon had mentioned that at most they could do $3 billion/year in revenue launching stuff for others.

But SpaceX has now exceeded one million subscribers for Starlink which equals to about $2 billion/year in additional revenue. So it is likely that next year that the majority of SpaceX’s revenue will be coming from Starlink even though SpaceX is launching more stuff for customers than ever before.

Starlink’s revenue should also skyrocket once Starship is able to launch Starlink 2.0 satellites which will happen at some point next year.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced that its Starlink satellite internet service provider has over a million active subscribers.

‘Starlink now has more than 1,000,000 active subscribers — thank you to all customers and members of the Starlink team who contributed to this milestone,’ the official SpaceX Twitter account wrote on Monday.

The news comes at the end of a year in which the service, which provides low-latency, high-speed internet at an affordable cost — often to remote areas without existing WiFi-has expanded to yachts, cruise ships and RVs.

Continue reading “Elon Musk’s Starlink has 1M active subscribers globally amid expansion” | >

According to an FCC filing earlier this month, SpaceX are looking to get permission to launch the next generation of its Starlink satellites very soon.

A filing with the FCC suggests that SpaceX hopes to launch a new Starlink broadband satellite system soon. This could help the company keep up with the increase in demand.

The company wants to connect current user terminals to upcoming satellites in geosynchronous orbit (NGSO) and needs a special temporary authorization (STA) from the FCC for 60 days. If granted, SpaceX could begin providing Gen 2 services while the FCC investigates its request for longer-term authority.

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