Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit reached space on Sunday, eight months after the first demonstration flight of its air-launched rocket system failed, the company said.
Related: Virgin Orbit looks into cause of LauncherOne test failure
Continue reading...Miniature satellites open up a world of technological possibility. But experts say they degrade the astronomical landscape
The natural serenity of the night sky is a touchstone for all of us. Everyone alive today looks at the same stars no matter where they are located on the planet. But the connection is more profound because, next to our brief lives, the stars are immortal. Shakespeare saw the same stars in the same patterns that we do. So did Galileo, Columbus, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and the first human ancestor to look up in curiosity. The night sky is nothing short of our common human heritage.
Last year, however, something happened that might change that view for ever. On 23 May 2019, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched 60 small satellites from a single rocket. The satellites were the first in what is planned to be a “megaconstellation” of thousands of satellites that will bring internet coverage to the entire planet.
Continue reading...Launch of projectile from satellite into orbit ‘threatens the peaceful use of space’
The US and UK have accused Russia of testing an anti-satellite weapon in space, in the latest sign that a space-based arms race is heating up.
General John Raymond, the head of the new US Space Force, said the alleged test of a projectile, conducted on 15 July, was “further evidence of Russia’s continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlin’s published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold US and allied space assets at risk.”
Continue reading...Bid for 20% of OneWeb to replace Galileo after Brexit ‘looks like nationalism trumping industrial policy’
The UK government’s plan to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in a satellite broadband company has been described as “nonsensical” by experts, who say the company doesn’t even make the right type of satellite the country needs after Brexit.
The investment in OneWeb, first reported on Thursday night, is intended to mitigate against the UK losing access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system.
Continue reading...The Noor was launched by a three-stage rocket and, according to Iran officials, had reached a 425 km high orbit
Iran has claimed it has put its first military satellite into orbit, further raising tensions with the US at a time the two countries are already facing off in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the satellite “Noor” (Light) was in a 425km (264 miles) high orbit, after a successful launch. Iran launched its first civilian satellite in 2009.
Continue reading...ESA say its Aeolus Earth observation satellite fired thrusters to avoid crash
The European Space Agency has said it altered the trajectory of one of its observation satellites to avoid a collision with a craft operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“@ESA’s Aeolus Earth observation satellite fired its thrusters, moving it off a collision course with a @SpaceX satellite in their Starlink constellation,” the agency’s Twitter account said.
Continue reading...Blast-off makes China the third country after US and Russia to master sea launch technology
China has launched a rocket from a mobile platform at sea for the first time, sending five commercial satellites and two others containing experimental technology into space.
The Long March 11 rocket blasted off from a launch pad onboard a commercial ship in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Shandong province – the 306th Long March rocket launch, but the first one at sea.
Continue reading...Elon Musk’s Starlink internet satellites ‘have no public consensus and may impair view of the cosmos’
Mega constellations of human-made satellites could soon blight the view of the night sky, astronomers warned following the launch of Elon Musk’s Starlink probes last week.
The first 60 of an intended 12,000 satellites were successfully blasted into orbit on Thursday by Musk’s company, SpaceX, which plans to use them to beam internet communication from space down to Earth.
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