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Category: satellites – Page 10

Starship’s Next Leap: SpaceX Gears Up for Epic Test Flight Amid High Stakes

SpaceX’s Starship is poised for its eighth flight from Boca Chica, Texas, pending regulatory approval from the FAA. The previous flight resulted in a mid-air explosion, leading to increased scrutiny and a temporary suspension by the FAA. The upcoming launch will feature a daring maneuver to catch the booster stage with “chopstick” arms, showcasing advanced engineering feats. The mission aims to deploy Starlink simulators, marking progress toward new satellite technology. Elon Musk and SpaceX view Starship as crucial for future missions to Mars and the Moon, with NASA keenly following its progress.

Space Development Agency satellite procurements moving forward amid heightened scrutiny

“Acquisitions and programs are moving forward,” an SDA spokesperson said in a statement to SpaceNews, adding that the agency is preparing to release a fresh solicitation for the 10 satellites in the near future.

Tranche 3 Tracking Layer proposals

In parallel with efforts to correct procurement missteps, SDA is advancing the first major satellite acquisition since Tournear’s removal: a 54-satellite procurement for the Tranche 3 Tracking Layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). This next-generation missile tracking constellation builds on the foundation of earlier tranches, expanding coverage and improving real-time threat detection capabilities.

NASA satellites catch Earth’s magnetic field making music

And understanding these waves a little better could help scientists better predict when and where they’ll happen, as well as how strong they’ll be. That could be vital to the safety of satellites orbiting our planet, which are vulnerable to solar storms and other sudden bursts of radiation from deep space.

“These high-energy electrons are known as ‘killer electrons’ because they have damaged several satellites, costing hundreds of millions of dollars,” wrote Horne. “Chorus waves are now included in forecasting models that are designed to protect these satellites.”

Redwire lands new satellite contract for Space Force in-orbit refueling experiment

WASHINGTON — Space infrastructure company Redwire has secured a contract to provide an additional satellite platform for a U.S. Space Force orbital refueling experiment.

The satellite order, announced Feb. 11, is for a third Mako satellite bus for the Space Force’s Tetra-6 in-orbit refueling experiment scheduled for 2027. The prime contractor for the experiment, Arcfield, had previously ordered two Mako platforms for the Tetra-5 experiment, scheduled for 2025.

The Tetra-5 and Tetra-6 missions represent key tests of in-space refueling capabilities, a sector of the market closely being watched by military and commercial stakeholders as they seek to extend satellite lifespans.

Research sheds light on using multiple CubeSats for in-space servicing and repair missions

As more satellites, telescopes, and other spacecraft are built to be repairable, it will take reliable trajectories for service spacecraft to reach them safely. Researchers in the Department of Aerospace Engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are developing a methodology that will allow multiple CubeSats to act as servicing agents to assemble or repair a space telescope.

Published in The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, their method minimizes , guarantees that servicing agents never come closer to each other than 5 meters, and can be used to solve pathway guidance problems that aren’t space related.

“We developed a scheme that allows the CubeSats to operate efficiently without colliding,” said aerospace Ph.D. student Ruthvik Bommena. “These small spacecraft have limited onboard computation capabilities, so these trajectories are precomputed by mission design engineers.”

NASA picks SpaceX to launch Pandora exoplanet mission

Pandora will lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than this fall, according to NASA officials.

Pandora will head to low Earth orbit. Once there, the satellite will observe at least 20 known transiting exoplanets — worlds that cross the face of their parent star from the telescope’s perspective. It will observe these planets 10 separate times, staring at them for 24 hours on each occasion.

Understanding Titan’s Interior and History Through Tidal Friction

What can a moon’s tidal friction teach us about its formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz investigated a connection between the spin rate and tidal energy on Saturn’s moon, Titan, to determine more about Titan’s interior. This study has the potential to help researchers better understand the internal processes of Titan, leading to better constraints on the existence of a subsurface ocean.

For the study, the researchers used a combination of data obtained by NASA’s now-retired Cassini spacecraft and a series of mathematical calculations to determine Titan’s tidal dissipation, which is the amount of tidal energy lost in an object from friction and other processes, and for which the only moons in the solar system this has been successfully been accomplished being the Earth’s Moon and Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io. Better understanding a moon’s tidal dissipation helps researchers better understand its formation and evolution, which the researchers successfully estimated for Titan.

“Tidal dissipation in satellites affects their orbital and rotational evolution and their ability to maintain subsurface oceans,” said Dr. Brynna Downey, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and lead author of the study. “Now that we have an estimate for the strength of tides on Titan, what does it tell us about how quickly the orbit is changing? What we discovered is that it’s changing very quickly on a geologic timescale.”

Engineers develop a fully 3D-printed electrospray engine that can power tiny satellites

An electrospray engine applies an electric field to a conductive liquid, generating a high-speed jet of tiny droplets that can propel a spacecraft. These miniature engines are ideal for small satellites called CubeSats that are often used in academic research.

Since engines utilize more efficiently than the powerful, chemical rockets used on the launchpad, they are better suited for precise, in-orbit maneuvers. The thrust generated by an electrospray emitter is tiny, so electrospray engines typically use an array of emitters that are uniformly operated in parallel.

However, these multiplexed electrospray thrusters are typically made via expensive and time-consuming semiconductor cleanroom fabrication, which limits who can manufacture them and how the devices can be applied.

The Risk of Space Junk Hitting Planes Is Rising in The Era of SpaceX

We’ve yet to see a falling piece of space debris strike an airplane, but if it happens, the consequences would almost certainly be catastrophic – and according to a new study, the danger posed to planes is only rising.

The researchers behind the study, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, looked at worldwide flight data to model the distribution of planes in the sky, then compared this to records of uncontrolled rocket body reentries.

The increasing risk is also being driven in part by the mass deployment of satellites, like SpaceX’s Starlink, which will eventually reenter our airspace.

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