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SpaceX Starlink Internet service will soon be available across the West African country of Nigeria, according to Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Ali Pantami. SpaceX already delivered some Starlink user terminals to the country to commence services. “As part of the partnership, SpaceX is to provide broadband access across the whole of Nigeria, enabling nationwide access to broadband connectivity way ahead of the December 2025 schedule, as outlined in our national broadband plan,” said Pantami. “With this collaboration with SpaceX’s Starlink, Nigeria is set to be the first African country to introduce the service.” Nigeria’s goals was to cover 90% of the country’s population with reliable internet access by 2025, the goal is now attainable because the Starlink satellite network is easy to set up and capable of beaming high-speed internet to rural and remote communities. SpaceX’s official Starlink Coverage Map says the service is ‘coming soon’ to Nigeria, users must input their address on the website to find out if its already available in their specific area.

On the partnership with SpaceX and StarLink. They have now commenced the deployment of their facilities in Nigeria is the first African country to reach that partnership & also approval for the deployment. pic.twitter.com/QamCN2AG4z — Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (@ProfIsaPantami) December 29, 2022

The company sent an email to potential customers living in Nigeria, stating that the service is available for pre-order. “Order now to reserve your Starlink expects to expand service in your area [Nigeria] in 2023. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship,” the email says. The hardware to access the satellite internet service costs $600 [N438,000] in Nigeria with an internet subscription of $43 [N31,390] per month.

Without satellite navigation, rockets can’t navigate to the moon without ground control, which is costly, cumbersome, and requires a lot of math.

When there is no mobile coverage, phones will be able to send emergency texts via satellite.

A new video provides an epic view of a historic SpaceX mission.

On Tuesday morning (Jan. 3), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on a “rideshare” mission called Transporter-6 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying 114 satellites to orbit for a variety of customers.

Both the European Space Agency and NASA are planning to test even more sensitive sensors on future moon missions to try and hone in on satellite signals. If they can truly connect with sats back home, we could get closer to achieving autonomous moon travel. But eventually that won’t be enough. To help direct humans on the lunar surface, we’re going to need a fleet of satellites specifically around the moon. NASA calls its project LunaNet, and it’s part of the Gateway space station, which is the culmination of America’s plan to return to the moon. It needs to be designed to play well with ESA technology and, eventually, will be the source of high-speed internet on the moon.

Artemis I launched back in November, rounded the moon just 81 miles above the lunar surface and touched down Earth-side in December. Artemis II, which will carry astronauts around the moon in a similar trajectory, is slated to launch in late 2024, according to Space.com. Artemis III, which will be humanity’s first boots on the moon since 1972, could launch as early as 2025.

The company almost doubled its launch record set the previous year. This year, it will likely break new ground with Starship.

SpaceX’s first mission of 2023 launched a massive 114 satellites into orbit. The Falcon 9 rideshare mission, called Transporter-6, launched at 10:56 a.m. EST (1456 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Continue reading “SpaceX launches its first mission of 2023 following a record-smashing 2022” »

This month, NASA launched a new Earth-monitoring satellite that will observe fresh water systems across the planet. Now, the satellite has unfurled in space ready to begin science operations, and NASA has shared a video showing the unfolding process.

Named the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, it had been folded up to fit inside the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which launched it from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on December 16. Once the satellite reached space, it had to deploy its solar panel arrays, then unfold its mast and antenna panels. While deploying the solar panel arrays was a quick process, taking place shortly after launch, the unfolding of the antennae was much more involved and took four days.

As the SWOT satellite has a camera at the end of its long master, used for its Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument, these cameras were able to capture the unfolding process on video. This instrument is a new type of interferometer that will be able to see the depth of fresh water bodies such as lakes and rivers by using radar pulses. It sends two radar pulses down to the surface with a slight offset, allowing researchers to see the depth of these features. This is possible because of the wide spread of its two antennae, spaced 10 meters apart.

Alpha Centauri, here we come.

However, while technology has indeed advanced a long way since the 1940s, it still seems like we are still a long way from having a fully functional von Neumann machine. That is unless you turn to biology. Even simple biological systems can perform absolutely mind-blowing feats of chemical synthesis. And there are few people in the world today who know that better than George Church. The geneticist from Harvard has been at the forefront of a revolution in the biological sciences over the last 30 years. Now, he’s published a new paper in Astrobiology musing about how biology could aid in creating a pico-scale system that could potentially explore other star systems at next to no cost.

Continue reading “Trillions of tiny, self-replicating satellites could unlock interstellar travel” »

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” »