Lifeboat Foundation

But the dark matter hypothesis isn’t perfect. Computer simulations of the growth of galaxies suggest that dark-matter-dominated galaxies should have incredibly high densities in their centers. Observations of real galaxies do show higher densities in their cores, but not nearly enough as those simulations predicted. Also, simulations of dark matter evolving in the universe predict that every galaxy should have hundreds of smaller satellites, while observations consistently come up short.

Given that the dark matter hypothesis isn’t perfect — and that we have no direct evidence for the existence of any candidate particles — it’s worth exploring other options.

Continue reading “The dark matter hypothesis isn’t perfect, but the alternatives are worse” »

Elon Musk’s SpaceX raised $250 million in an equity round last month, the company disclosed in a securities filing on Friday. It has now raised $2 billion in 2022.

The filing doesn’t specify the sources of the funds, but noted they came from five investors.

SpaceX did not disclose a change in its valuation. The company’s value has soared in the last few years, with SpaceX raising billions to fund work on two capital-intensive projects — the next generation rocket Starship and its global satellite internet network Starlink. Its value hit $127 billion during its previous equity round in May, CNBC reported. That raise brought in $1.725 billion.

A new deep dive into this fascinating, possibly game changing tool to RAPIDLY build space infrastructure that would otherwise take far longer and cost more to lift into orbit with rockets.

Take the Real Engineering X Brilliant Course and get 20% off your an annual subscription: https://brilliant.org/realengineering.

Continue reading “Can We Throw Satellites to Space? — SpinLaunch” »

Outer space is already an essential part of America’s ability to fight wars. Our military depends on satellites for many things, such as communications, reconnaissance and targeting information. See more in Season 4, Episode 8, “Space Wars.”

#TheUniverse.

Continue reading “The Universe: Space Weapons Prepare for War (S4, E8) | Full Episode | History” »

“This launch represents the conclusion of the production and launch phase, and the commencement of the satellites’ critical missile detection and early warning mission,” Maj. Matt Blystone, program manager at the Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC), told reporters today at a pre-launch briefing.

SBIRS, conceived in 1996, was designed to replace the elderly Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites, the first of which was launched in 1970. The operational constellation comprises three satellites in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) and two hosted payloads on classified satellites in Highly Elliptical Orbits over the poles. Lockheed Martin is the SBIRS prime contractor and Northrop Grumman the payload integrator.

Assuming the Thursday launch goes as planned, the last of the satellites, SBIRS GEO-6, is expected to be up and running by “late spring, early summer” next year, Blystone said. The time between now and then will be filled with various tests of the satellite and its subsystems.

Cheap and quick to produce, the plasma sensors could help scientists predict the weather or study climate change.

🗑️ Space junk (space debris, space pollution, space waste, or space garbage) is defunct man-made objects in space (mainly in Earth orbit) that no longer serve a useful function.

👀 And here is how its number has changed over the past 60 years.

*As of January 2021, the US Space Surveillance Network reported 21,901 artificial objects in orbit above the Earth, including 4,450 operational satellites. However, these are just objects large enough to be tracked.

Continue reading “Space junk, 1962-2022 🛰️” »

SpaceX shared how it’s making its Starlink satellites less bright. The space exploration company published a document titled, Brightness Mitigation Best Practices for Satellite Operators that outlines how it’s working with the astronomy community to reduce light pollution.

New document from @SpaceX https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBe…rators.pdf explaining what they have been doing to make their satellites less bright. I applaud SpaceX for their work on this (and for making the document public), while remaining concerned to see how bright the Gen2 Starlinks end up being.

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) July 29, 2022