NASA and NOAA have declared the Sun’s solar maximum, noting increased sunspot activity and heightened solar events that influence Earth’s space weather.
This period is linked to significant geomagnetic storms and aurora displays, with potential disruptions to satellites and communication systems.
Solar maximum announced by NASA and NOAA.
So, does anyone thinks that perhaps there are too many sats in orbit? what will be when they all deploy? Earth Sky 1956 clear of any sat at least of human origin and after that mayor astronomy problem with sats in orbit.
International competition is intensifying for the deployment of satellite constellations into orbit, notes Statista’s Katharina Buchholz.
Satellite constellations — the most well-known being SpaceX’s Starlink — are designed to provide high-speed global Internet access.
Starlink, launched in 2019, had more than 6,300 satellites in service at the beginning of September, out of 12,000 eventually scheduled to be deployed (or even 40,000 according to an announcement of a possible extension of the project).
France and Germany are joining the coalition at a time of heightened tension in space, with both China and Russia demonstrating their ability to disrupt or destroy satellites. Operation Olympic Defender aims to deter such actions through collective defense, shared intelligence, and the promotion of international norms for responsible space activity.
Germany’s official entry into Operation Olympic Defender was marked by a formal ceremony in Berlin, where Whiting joined Lt. Gen. Gunter Schneider, director-general for military strategy and operations at the German Ministry of Defence, and representatives from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
“Space is truly a team sport. The addition of Germany to our roster of growing like-minded partners contributes to our collective ability to address the growing threats in the domain,” said Whiting.
WASHINGTON — A startup led by a founder of a financial services company is taking a new approach to space-based solar power intended to be more scalable and affordable than previous concepts.
Aetherflux announced Oct. 9 plans to develop and ultimately deploy a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit that will collect solar power and beam it to Earth using infrared lasers. The company is planning to demonstrate this technology with a small satellite launching by early 2026.
The concept is a departure from many previous concepts for space-based solar power (SBSP), which have involved large arrays in geostationary orbit. Those systems would transmit their power using microwaves to large rectennas on the ground. Such concepts have been studied for more than half a century but have not advanced beyond the drawing board.
Tens of thousands of years ago, the Earth’s magnetic field flipped — and now, scientists have recreated the haunting sound it made during that cataclysmic event.
Using data from the European Space Agency’s three-satellite Swarm mission delving deep into our planet’s magnetic field, Danish and German researchers have managed to map and recreate the sounds of what is known as the Laschamp event, which resulted in Earth’s magnetic field briefly flipping 41,000 years ago.
During this event, which was named after the Laschamps lava flows in France where evidence of this flip was first discovered in the 1960s, our planet’s magnetic field weakened to just five percent of its normal strength.
XRISM is transforming our understanding of supermassive black holes and their galactic neighborhoods, providing high-resolution X-ray spectra that reveal complex structures like twisted accretion disks.
This groundbreaking international space mission, a collaboration between JAXA, NASA, and ESA, is only beginning to unveil the intricate details of black holes and their impact on galaxy formation, with early data already confirming long-held hypotheses.
Initial data from an international space mission is confirming decades of hypotheses about the galactic environments surrounding supermassive black holes. Yet, even more thrilling is the satellite behind this data—the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM)—is just getting started providing such unparalleled insights.
Researchers have invented a technique that enables low Earth orbit satellite antennas to manage signals for multiple users at once, slashing costs and simplifying designs for communication satellites.
Low-orbit satellites could soon offer millions of people worldwide access to high-speed communications, but the satellites’ potential has been stymied by a technological limitation – their antenna arrays can only manage one user at a time.
The one-to-one ratio means that companies must launch either constellations of many satellites, or large individual satellites with many arrays, to provide wide coverage. Both options are expensive, technically complex, and could lead to overcrowded orbits.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) is preparing for the second flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket this week. The mission will see Vulcan carry an inert payload to orbit alongside some experiments and demonstrations and will complete its certification process with the U.S. Space Force (USSF).
SpaceX has delayed missions this week following an off-nominal deorbit burn of a Falcon 9 second stage following the Crew-9 mission. The stage landed in the South Pacific Ocean but outside of the defined reentry corridor. While the team investigates, the company has rescheduled Monday’s planned launch of its OneWeb mission out of Vandenberg to next week, while a Starlink mission will now fly from the Cape this week on Saturday, Oct. 5.
Another Falcon 9 is being prepared to launch the Hera mission for the European Space Agency (ESA) from Florida. With two cubesats onboard, Hera will study the results of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) asteroid deflection test, which impacted the Dimorphos asteroid two years ago. The pad at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) remains configured for the upcoming Europa Clipper mission, which will fly on a Falcon Heavy next week. Both of these interplanetary missions have launch windows that extend to the end of the month in case of any further delays.
Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket and is shaping up to be the rocket that will finally realize the company’s dream, sourced from Elon Musk, of making humans a multi-planetary species. With a few Starship launches under its belt SpaceX is full steam ahead to achieving its goal, but it appears its being blocked by US regulators more than necessary, at least according to SpaceX.
Despite its goals, we have now learned an approximate figure SpaceX has spent on Starship’s development, with the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Gwynne Shotwell, saying in front of the Texas Appropriations Committee for Texas Space Commission that SpaceX has invested $3 billion into developing Starship and its surrounding facilities. Shotwell also pointed out SpaceX is about to break through the four million mark for Starlink customers and that as the network grows, it plans to expand its facilities and put more Starlink satellites in orbit.
