Lifeboat Foundation

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.

Continue reading “Watch the latest water satellite unfold itself in space” »

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.

SpaceX/YouTube.

“This launch marks the first of Starlink’s upgraded network. Under our new license, we [can now] deploy satellites to new orbits that will add even more capacity to the network,” SpaceX explained in its mission description.

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.

Weather should be ideal for the early Wednesday launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with Starlink internet satellites.

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.

There’s still a long way to go before beaming power from space becomes a profitable venture.

Space-based solar power satellites could eventually power remote mines, but at the moment they face a major challenge.

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

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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.

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