Satellite named Tyche to support armed forces operations as well as monitor natural disasters and impact of climate change
The UK has launched its first military satellite able to capture daytime images and videos of the Earth’s surface.
The satellite, named Tyche, will support British armed forces operations as well as monitor natural disasters, help map information development and track the impact of climate change globally, the Ministry of Defence said.
Continue reading...With a widespread telecoms blackout already in place, emergency help and humanitarian aid at risk if satellite service withdrawn, say NGOs
Nearly 100 humanitarian groups in Sudan have warned Elon Musk he risks “collectively punishing” millions of Sudanese by shutting down his vital Starlink satellite internet service in the war-ravaged country.
Sudan has been grappling with a widespread telecommunications blackout for several months, with many aid groups using Starlink to operate during the humanitarian crisis which the UN has warned is the largest in decades.
Continue reading...First attempt with private Kairos rocket was intended to test viability of homegrown commercial launch business
A rocket made by a Japanese company has exploded seconds after it was launched with the goal of putting a satellite into orbit.
Tokyo-based Space One’s 18-metre Kairos rocket blasted off from the company’s launch pad in the Wakayama region of western Japan, carrying a small government test satellite, on Wednesday.
Continue reading...The environmentally friendly LignoSat probe – set to orbit this summer – has been created to combat harmful aluminium particles
Japanese scientists have created one of the world’s most unusual spacecraft – a tiny satellite that is made of timber.
The LignoSat probe has been built of magnolia wood, which, in experiments carried out on the International Space Station (ISS), was found to be particularly stable and resistant to cracking. Now plans are being finalised for it to be launched on a US rocket this summer.
Continue reading...SaxaVord on Unst has become UK’s first spaceport to be licensed for vertical rocket launches
For centuries, Unst has been famous for its richly varied of wildlife, pristine beaches and unspoilt sea views. Now the remote Shetland island is leading Britain into space.
A former RAF base on a remote peninsula of the island has become the UK’s first licensed spaceport for vertical rocket launches. It will allow up to 30 satellites and other payloads to be launched into commercially valuable polar, sun-synchronous orbits, which are in high demand from satellite operators for communications and Earth observation.
Continue reading...Seoul’s satellite was launched into orbit on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets
A SpaceX rocket has launched South Korea’s first military spy satellite, intensifying a space race on the peninsula after Pyongyang launched its own first surveillance satellite last week.
Seoul’s reconnaissance satellite, carried by one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, lifted off from the Vandenberg US Space Force Base in California at 10.19am local time on Friday.
Continue reading...Dictator seen with daughter at celebration for scientists and technicians who finally put Malligyong-1 into space after two failed attempts
The North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, has celebrated a “new era of a space power” with his family including daughter Ju Ae and the scientists who put the North’s first spy satellite into orbit.
Pyongyang’s launch of the Malligyong-1 on Tuesday was its third attempt after failures in May and August.
Continue reading...Dish to pay $150,000 for failing to properly dispose of satellite and violating the FCC’s anti-space debris rule
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued its first fine to a company that violated its anti-space debris rule, the commission announced Monday.
Dish Network has to pay $150,000 to the commission over its failure to de-orbit its EchoStar-7 satellite which has been in space for more than two decades. Instead of properly de-orbiting the satellite, Dish sent it into a “disposal orbit” at an altitude low enough to pose orbital debris risk.
Continue reading...European Space Agency brought down defunct Aeolus weather monitoring craft in unprecedented manoeuvre
A British-built weather monitoring spacecraft has been deliberately guided into the Atlantic Ocean, the first time a defunct satellite has been manoeuvred to perform an assisted crash on Earth.
Aeolus, a satellite that has provided data to weather centres across Europe since 2018, was successfully helped to its final resting place by mission controllers at the European Space Agency (Esa).
Continue reading...European Space Agency to attempt unprecedented manoeuvre despite craft not being designed for controlled re-entry
A defunct European satellite is expected to make an unprecedented return to Earth on Friday when mission controllers guide the spacecraft into a fiery dive over the Atlantic Ocean.
The Aeolus weather-monitoring satellite was not designed for a controlled re-entry at the end of its mission, but the European Space Agency (Esa) has decided to use what little fuel remains onboard to steer the probe to a watery grave.
Continue reading...SpaceX says satellite communications service ‘never, never meant to be weaponised’
A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”.
Continue reading...Start Me Up mission will send nine civil and defence satellites into orbit from Newquay spaceport on Monday
Thousands of people are expected to descend on Cornwall to witness the first orbital rocket launch from UK soil in what is being heralded as the start of a “new era” for the British space industry.
As long as there are no last-minute technical hitches – and the Cornish weather does not spoil the party – the historic Start Me Up mission will take off on Monday night from Spaceport Cornwall, blasting nine satellites into orbit.
Continue reading...The commercial space company rejects criticism of satellite launches for the US military
A New Zealand commercial space company, Rocket Lab, has faced new opposition to its activities on behalf of foreign militaries, with one New Zealand Green MP saying its actions could fly in the face of the country’s anti-nuclear stance.
The American-New Zealand company, founded by Peter Beck in 2006, provides rockets to deliver payloads into orbit from its launch site on the Māhia Peninsula, in New Zealand’s north. A third of Rocket Lab’s activities have been on behalf of defence and national security agencies. These include launching US and Australian spy satellites, the controversial “Gunsmoke J” satellite, and most recently Nasa’s capstone spacecraft.
Continue reading...Firm reportedly asks US government to pick up bill as relationship between Musk and Kyiv breaks down
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has said it cannot afford to continue to donate satellite internet to Ukraine and has asked the US government to pick up the bill, according to a report, as the relationship between the billionaire and Kyiv breaks down.
“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote, in a letter seen by CNN.
Continue reading...Tehran denies Khayyam satellite will be under Russian control, despite reported admission by Moscow
Russia has launched an Iranian satellite from Kazakhstan amid concerns it could be used for battlefield surveillance in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Iran has denied that the Khayyam satellite, which was delivered into orbit onboard a Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonur cosmodrome, would ever be under Russian control.
Continue reading...OneWeb, touted by Boris Johnson as a potential rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink, provides communications services
A satellite company part-owned by the British government is due to be taken over by an EU rival this week, dashing hopes of fostering a UK firm to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink following its taxpayer bailout at the height of the pandemic.
OneWeb, which provides services including broadband from its low-orbit satellites, will be taken over by one of its shareholders – the Paris-listed Eutelsat- in a deal that could be announced as early as Monday.
Continue reading...A new generation of detectors will be many times better at tracking discharges of the dangerous greenhouse gas
Last month, scientists working with data from Tropomi, a monitoring instrument onboard the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5 satellite, published some startling findings. Writing in the journal Science, the team reported that it had found about 1,800 instances of huge releases of methane (more than 25 tonnes an hour) into the atmosphere in 2019 and 2020. Two-thirds of these were from oil and gas facilities, with the leaks concentrated over the largest oil and gas basins across the world, as well as major transmission pipelines, the team said.
Launched in 2017, Tropomi has been a huge step forward for scientists researching methane, being the first instrument in space that can see plumes of methane emissions directly, says Lena Höglund-Isaksson, a methane researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis . For example, the instrument led to the discovery of huge methane leaks in Turkmenistan that researchers were not aware of before, she says.
Continue reading...Elon Musk’s firm says 80% of the satellites it launched last week are expected to burn up instead of reaching orbit
SpaceX will lose up to 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites it launched last week as the result of a geomagnetic storm, the company has announced.
Elon Musk’s firm launched the satellites into low-Earth orbit on 3 February from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but 80% of them are now expected to burn up instead of reaching their intended orbit.
Continue reading...In the outermost parts of our islands, a new industry in satellites, rockets and launch ports is poised for take-off
In the next 12 months, Britain is expected to make a remarkable aerospace breakthrough. For the first time, a satellite will be fired into orbit from a launch pad in the United Kingdom.
It will be a historic moment – though exactly where this grand adventure will begin is not yet clear. A series of fledgling operations, backed by the UK Space Agency, are now competing to be the first to launch a satellite from British soil.
Continue reading...At least 12,000 women are still abducted and forced into marriage every year in Kyrgyzstan. But pressure is growing to finally end the medieval custom
Aisuluu was returning home after spending the afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy, not far from the Torugart crossing into China. “It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. I had a paper bag full of samsa [a dough dumpling stuffed with lamb, parsley and onion]. My aunt always prepared them on weekends,” she said.
“A car with four men inside comes in the opposite direction to mine. And all of a sudden it … turns around and, within a few seconds, comes up beside me. One of the guys in the back gets out, yanks me and pushes me inside the car. I drop all the samsa on the pavement. I scream, I squirm, I cry, but there is nothing I can do.”
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