Lifeboat Foundation

China’s LandSpace is getting ready to launch its revolutionary ZQ-2 methane-powered rocket for the second time sometime this year.

Chinese space tech company LandSpace is gearing up to launch its revolutionary methane-propelled rocket, the Zhuque-2 (ZQ 2), for the second time sometime this year. Scheduled to blast off from the company’s launch facility in the Gobi Desert, the mission will deliver a satellite into space. LandSpace, widely considered China’s answer to SpaceX, the launch is hoped to cement further the utility of using methane as a reliable next generation of rocket fuel.

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The company’s rockets are ferrying astronauts, launching satellites and dominating any competition.

The joint research team of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor JeongHo Kwak at the DGIST and Aerospace Engineering Professor Jihwan Choi at the KAIST have proposed a novel network slicing planning and handover technique applicable to next-generation low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network systems. Findings of the study have been published in the journal IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine.

LEO satellite networks refer to communications networks with satellites launched within 300–1,500km, established for a stable supply of Internet services. Unlike base stations on land in which radio signals are often interfered with by mountains or buildings, LEO satellites can be launched to build communications networks to places with low population density where base stations could not be set up, thereby allowing them to receive the spotlight as a next-generation satellite communications system.

Accordingly, as more and more satellites are placed in lower orbits, satellite networks are expected to be formed as an alternative to terrestrial networks using links between LEO satellites. However, LEO satellites move in predictable orbits, and their connection within the network is wireless, which is why LEO satellite networks must be considered from a different view than terrestrial networks.

UK company ODIN Space has demonstrated a space junk sensor, which could map and analyse debris with sub-centimetre precision.

SpaceX recently launched a Falcon 9 rocket delivering the Transporter 8 mission, a rideshare carrying various microsatellites and nanosatellites into orbit for commercial and government customers. These payloads included new sensor technology by ODIN Space, installed on a D-Orbit ION satellite. ODIN Space has now confirmed that the spacecraft has successfully begun to capture data from its surroundings.

A new navigation system that tracks subatomic particles constantly bombarding Earth could help us get around indoors, underground, and underwater — all the places GPS fails.

The challenge: GPS (the Global Positioning System) is a group of 31 satellites, constantly transmitting radio signals from about 12,500 miles above Earth’s surface. Receivers in phones, cars, planes, and ships then use data from multiple satellites’ signals to calculate their own locations on Earth.

While GPS has revolutionized surface transportation, satellite signals can reflect off solid surfaces, making the navigation system incapable of accurately pinpointing the locations of receivers indoors, underground, and underwater.

NASA

This advancement is made possible through lasers acting as data carriers, offering a much wider spectrum than traditional microwave technology. The deployment of this cutting-edge technology is expected to revolutionize ground communication with satellites.

SpaceX has announced a plan to give T-Mobile customers direct access to the Starlink satellite constellation, ensuring they’ll have mobile coverage nearly everywhere in the US.

“I think this is really a massive game changer,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk during a live event at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. “In a nutshell, it’s no more dead zones.”

The challenge: Cell coverage is widespread in the US, but there are still more than half a million square miles — nearly twice the size of Texas — where you won’t find a signal from any carrier.

Year 2015 😗😁

Physicists in France have figured out how to optimise an advanced type of electric rocket thruster that uses a stream of plasma travelling at 72,420 km/h (45,000 mph) to propel spacecraft forward, allowing them to run on 100 million times less fuel than conventional chemical rockets.

Known as a Hall thruster, these engines have been operating in space since 1971, and are now routinely flown on communication satellites and space probes to adjust their orbits when needed. These things are awesome, and scientists want to use them to get humans to Mars, except there’s one — rather large — problem: the current lifespan of a Hall thruster is around 10,000 operation hours, and that’s way too short for most space exploration missions, which require upwards of 50,000 hours.

Continue reading “This Plasma Engine Could Get Humans to Mars on 100 Million Times Less Fuel” »

Previous competitions have involved satellites that weren’t in orbit, but this is the real deal.