"SMALL SATELLITES" EXPLODE IN POPULARITY -- AND SIZE - Small satellites are turning into big business. Since the Soviet Union opened the Space Age with its launch of Sputnik in 1957, the population of satellites in Earth orbit has swelled to more than 4,250. Of these, fully 291 -- or 7% -- are so-called small satellites. According to Denver-based "space law" firm Sherman & Howard, there's actually no single definition for what constitutes a small satellite, or "smallsat." More (Source: Fox Business - Dec 19)
ATLAS 5 ROCKET LAUNCHES SATELLITE TO BRING HIGH-SPEED INTERNET TO MORE AMERICANS - The world’s highest capacity broadband satellite, a craft that will connect rural America to high-speed Internet service, successfully rocketed into space today aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 booster. With a 2-to-1 thrust-to-weight ratio, the million-pound rocket unleashed two-million pounds of ground-shaking thrust to power away from its seaside launch complex at 2:13 p.m. EST (1913 GMT). The 194-foot-tall rocket, with its main engine and three side-mounted boosters all burning, left Cape Canaveral behind quickly to break through the sound barrier and pass the region of maximum air pressure in less than a minute. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 19)
ULA’S ATLAS V TO LAUNCH FROM CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION TODAY AT 1:27 P.M. - United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V EchoStar 19 is set to launch this Sunday from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window opens at 1:27 p.m. and closes at 3:27 p.m., and you can watch the launch live on Space Coast Daily TV. The Atlas V rocket (designated AV-071) will be carrying the EchoStar 19/Jupiter 2 communications satellite. The satellite will provide high-speed internet services for HughesNet throughout North America. More (Source: SpaceCoastDaily.com - Dec 18)
SPACE JUNK SOLUTION? JAPAN WOULD USE A TETHER TO NAB DEBRIS & DESTROY IT - The Japanese space agency will soon be testing a new technology that would use a roughly half-mile-long tether to grab large pieces of space debris and dispose of them. The proposed technology (first announced in 2014) would include a spacecraft that would deploy a 700-meter-long (2,296 feet) electrodynamic tether (EDT) and guide it toward a piece of space junk. The tether would latch onto the orbiting hunk of trash, and the operating spacecraft would then drag the debris down into the incinerator of Earth's atmosphere (causing the operating spacecraft to burn up as well). More (Source: Space.com - Dec 17)
'GOVERNOR MOONBEAM' VOWS TO LAUNCH 'OWN DAMN SATELLITE' IF DONALD TRUMP IGNORES CLIMATE CHANGE - With his latest cabinet picks, Donald Trump has strongly signaled that his administration will do little to combat climate change, which he once called a hoax invented by the Chinese. If the President-elect tries to stop climate research, however, California’s Governor has promised to fight him at every turn. In a barnburner speech on Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown vowed to defy any attempt by the future President to “mess with” the state’s earth science programs, telling a group of geophysicists in San Francisco, “We will persevere.” More (Source: Gizmodo - Dec 16)
SATELLITE THAT WILL BEAM HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACROSS AMERICA READY TO LAUNCH - A sophisticated communications satellite launches into orbit atop an Atlas 5 rocket Sunday to bring residential high-speed Internet to parts of the U.S. that must look to space for connectivity. Getting EchoStar 19 aloft begins with a ride to super-synchronous transfer orbit atop the United Launch Alliance rocket, departing from Cape Canaveral at 1:27 p.m. EST (1827 GMT). The daily launch window extends for exactly two hours. With a thrust-to-weight ratio of 2-to-1, the million-pound rocket will race off the launch pad on two million pounds of thrust and head eastward toward orbit. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 16)
GALILEO NAVIGATION SATELLITE SYSTEM GOES LIVE - After 17 years and numerous setbacks and budget boosts, Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system has gone live. At this point, 18 of the planned 30 satellites are already in orbit. The European Union's promise to enhance localization services was became reality on Thursday, with the successful launch of four more satellites of the bloc's prestige Galileo project. Initial services, free to users worldwide, will be available only on smartphones and navigation units already fitted with Galileo-compatible microchips. More (Source: Deutsche Welle - Dec 16)
FLOCK OF ‘MICROSATS’ LAUNCHED TO MEASURE WINDS INSIDE HURRICANES - A winged Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket dropped from the belly of a carrier jet off the east coast of Florida and fired into orbit Thursday with eight research satellites to fly around the tropics and return measurements of winds at the cores of hurricanes. The wind data should help scientists better understand the formation, growth and dissipation of tropical cyclones, and lessons from the $157 million Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System may improve hurricane forecasting, particularly the strength of storms at landfall. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 16)
OUR FUTURE IS IN RUINS: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SPACE, SATELLITES AND ORBITAL JUNK - Next year will mark six decades of space travel. Orbiting above us are more than one hundred million pieces of debris from this age of exploration - everything from specks of paint and flecks of plastic, to the tool bag dropped by a US astronaut in 2008, to the bus-sized European observation satellite that unexpectedly fell silent four years ago. Twelve years ago, Australian archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman began thinking about the historical value of what is commonly called 'space junk'. Space junk makes space more hazardous. More (Source: ABC Online - Dec 15)
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