Archive for the 'Space' Category
Starlink Teardown
November 25th, 2020This is a full teardown of a Starlink groundstation antenna. SpaceX definitely doesn’t want people messing around with the business end of that thing, as you’ll see. My assumption all along has been that the rural broadband aspect of Starlink is a limited hangout. Looking at the size of the PCB and the phased array, […]
Arecibo Telescope Will Be Dismantled
November 19th, 2020Via: Science Magazine: The Arecibo telescope’s long and productive life has come to an end. The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today it will decommission the iconic radio telescope in Puerto Rico following two cable breaks in recent months that have brought the structure to near collapse. The 57-year-old observatory, a survivor of numerous hurricanes […]
SpaceX, L3Harris Technologies Get Pentagon Contracts to Track Missiles from Outer Space
October 6th, 2020Via: Nextgov: The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency—which will become part of the U.S. Space Force in 2022—selected SpaceX and L3Harris Technologies to produce satellites and sensors that can track and target advanced missile threats from outer space. Award notices published to the federal procurement site beta.sam.gov Friday afternoon indicate that SpaceX could receive more than […]
SpaceX’s Starlink Satellites Could Make U.S. Army Navigation Hard to Jam
September 29th, 2020Via: MIT Technology Review: SpaceX has already launched more than 700 Starlink satellites, with thousands more due to come online in the years ahead. Their prime mission is to provide high-speed internet virtually worldwide, extending it to many remote locations that have lacked reliable service to date. Now, research funded by the US Army has […]
SpaceX Launch and Landing Sounds from Vehicle
September 14th, 2020Via: SpaceX:
Phosphine Detected In The Atmosphere of Venus
September 14th, 2020Via: Reuters: Scientists said on Monday they have detected in the harshly acidic clouds of Venus a gas called phosphine that indicates microbes may inhabit Earth’s inhospitable neighbor, a tantalizing sign of potential life beyond Earth. The researchers did not discover actual life forms, but noted that on Earth phosphine is produced by bacteria thriving […]
Starlink Engineer/Spokeswoman Confirms Optical Backhaul Operational on Two Satellites
September 3rd, 2020Wow. I thought that this capability was years away, even for testing. Nope. Via: CNBC: Tice also said that the company recently conducted a test to see if it can connect two satellites in orbit with what SpaceX calls “space lasers.” Also known as intersatellite links, the space lasers would imporve the Starlink network by […]
Amazon’s Project Kuiper Is More Than a Response to Starlink
August 18th, 2020Via: IEEE Spectrum: “With Amazon, it’s a whole different ballgame,” says Zac Manchester, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. “The thing that makes Amazon different from SpaceX and OneWeb is they have so much other stuff going for them.” If Kuiper succeeds, Amazon can not only offer global satellite broadband access—it […]
SpaceX Starlink Beta Users Getting Download Speeds of 11 to 60Mbps
August 16th, 2020While these speeds are nowhere near the 1 Gbit/sec that had been mentioned with Starlink, this was already enough to cause me (someone who has struggled with rural Internet access since 2006) to go bug-eyed: Wow. Forget existing satellite based ISPs. They’re dead. And good riddance. *spit* But I do hope that other rural Internet […]
Pentagon Picks SpaceX and ULA to Remain Its Primary Launch Providers
August 7th, 2020Via: Space News: The Department of the Air Force announced Aug. 7 that incumbents United Launch Alliance and SpaceX have been selected to receive five-year contracts totaling $653 million to launch national security satellites for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The companies beat Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman in the four-way competition known as […]
