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Category: satellites – Page 63

Intentional or non-intentional, we do not know, but the drone ship captured the best moments of the night.

SpaceX’s third Falcon 9 launch in as many days might not have been a record-breaking achievement for the company, but it was still every bit as exciting its any other launch. The space company’s trusted workhorse put up quite a show by producing a rather rare phenomenon in the night sky called the space jellyfish.

While the rocket ascended into the late evening sky, the plumes of exhaust coming from its booster and then upper stage lit up the night sky like a neon sign much like a jellyfish swimming through the sky.

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SpaceX/YouTube.

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SpaceX launched a pair of four-ton Intelsat communications spacecraft from Cape Canaveral at twilight Saturday evening, two days later than planned after back-to-back scrubs, on the third flight of a Falcon 9 rocket this week.

The Falcon 9 rocket lit nine kerosene-fueled Merlin 1D engines and thundered away from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) Saturday. Thrust vector controls pivoted nine main engines to steer the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket due east from pad 40, and the Falcon 9 raced through the speed of sound in less than a minute.

Saturday’s mission, carrying Intelsat’s Galaxy 33 and 34 video relay satellites, marked the third Falcon 9 flight in a little more than three days, following back-to-back launches Wednesday.

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There was more to this launch than met the eye.

Earth’s first-ever artificial satellite Sputnik launched on October 4, 1957. In that moment, which occurred sixty-five years ago, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union transformed into a race to dominate not only Earth but also space.

But there was more to the launch than met the eye — behind the development of satellites to orbit Earth was a more nefarious purpose.

“The other aspect of it was, of course, the race to develop the first intercontinental ballistic missile. The U.S. was working on the Atlas missile, and the Russians were working on the RS-7,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

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Known for its electric vehicles, Tesla Inc TSLA also has a solar power division. Customers who bought solar roofs in Florida might be thanking the company after the lingering damage of Hurricane Ian.

What Happened: Hurricane Ian hit landfall in Florida and has caused severe damage to the region. Benzinga previously reported the impact could be $258 billion in replacement costs in one region and another $149 billion in the area of Tampa Bay.

The impact could be hundreds of millions of dollars for insurance companies as well.

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The rocket managed to make to the orbit and deliver all three of its payloads.

There was much to celebrate on Saturday as Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket successfully delivered a few tiny satellites to Earth orbit for the first time ever, according to an article by Space.com

Making orbit and delivering payloads

The rocket lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on October 1 at 3:01 a.m. EDT (12:01 a.m. local California time; 701 GMT) and managed to make to orbit and deliver all three of its payloads.

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It offers services on all seven continents of the world.

SpaceX has crossed the milestone of producing a million Starlink terminals, the company’s CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter earlier today. It is a significant boost for the satellite internet business of the space company, which began accepting preorders only 19 months ago.

Miss Vosk/Flickr.

The satellite internet is the new way of connecting the world. That can guarantee network coverage even in the remotest parts of the world. Fiber or cellular network-based internet requires the infrastructure to be connected to the last mile to ensure services; however, services like Starlink rely on a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbits that can deliver internet services directly from the skies.

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Russia’s war on Ukraine has turned a lot of assumptions about the fundamental nature and trajectory of how wars are fought, on its head.

For one thing, Ukraine’s strong defense has upended conventional wisdom about big powers being able to violate at will the sovereignty of little powers.

Technology, in particular, drones, has also leveled the playing field in unique ways.

The emergence of cryptocurrency, both as a means to fund the war and the relief efforts, raises all kinds of interesting questions about the ability to enforce sanctions and bypass the traditional financing of wars with alternate means.

I had a great discussion about these and other topics with Thomas Frey, and Trent Fowler, who have been giving a lot of thought to the future of war.

Frey is the founder and Executive Director of the DaVinci Institute and co-host of the Futurati Podcast. Over the past decade, he has built an enormous following around the world based on his ability to develop accurate visions of the future and describe the opportunities ahead.

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A solar flare erupted from a departing sunspot on September 16, releasing a pulse of X-rays and extreme UV radiation which caused a shortwave radio blackout in Africa and the Middle East. Frequencies below 25 MHz were affected for up to an hour after the flare.

Solar flare strength is measured much like the Richter scale which measures earthquakes. Solar flares are classed A, B, C, M or X where each successive letter corresponds to a 10-fold increase in energy output. A-class solar flares are barely above background radiation emission from the sun.

Spaceweather.com reports that the September 16 solar flare, exploding out of sunspot AR3098, was an M8-class, meaning it was nearly an X-flare, the most powerful kind.

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