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Archive for the ‘satellites’ category: Page 69

Mar 27, 2022

Intelsat rolls out network service that integrates Starlink and geostationary satellites

Posted by in categories: business, internet, satellites

WASHINGTON — If you can’t beat them, join them. That is the thinking behind a new managed network service offered by satellite operator Intelsat that integrates geostationary satellites, SpaceX’s Starlink low Earth orbit constellation and cellular broadband.

“A lot of our customers would like to use Starlink and many have been using it,” Don Claussen, Intelsat’s vice president of business development, told SpaceNews at last week’s Satellite 2022 conference.

Satellite communications companies “spend so much time fighting each other over what orbits are better, what band is better,” he said. “If we’re really listening to our customers, what they are saying is ‘we kind of need all of you.’”.

Mar 24, 2022

Vulcan Centaur on schedule for first launch in 2022 as New Glenn slips

Posted by in category: satellites

ULA remains confident that its Vulcan Centaur rocket will make its first launch this year while Blue Origin is pushing back the first flight of New Glenn.


WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance remains confident that its Vulcan Centaur rocket will make its first launch this year while Blue Origin is pushing back the first flight of its New Glenn vehicle.

During a panel at the Satellite 2022 conference March 22, Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said that he expected the first launch of the Vulcan “later this year,” but did not offer a more specific schedule.

Continue reading “Vulcan Centaur on schedule for first launch in 2022 as New Glenn slips” »

Mar 24, 2022

This new supersonic jet will fly from the US to China in just 1 hour

Posted by in category: satellites

A Chinese company has announced the construction of a new supersonic jet that is designed to travel from China to New York in just 60 minutes.

The company behind the project is Space Transportation, and according to its announcement, the company will be building a “rocket with wings” that will be much cheaper than the rockets used to take satellites into low-Earth orbit, while also being much faster than a commercial plane. Space Transportation has posted a demonstration video to its website, and the showcases four individuals getting aboard the jet that then orientates vertically and then launched.

Mar 24, 2022

Physicists report on first programmable quantum sensor

Posted by in categories: information science, quantum physics, robotics/AI, satellites

Atomic clocks are the best sensors mankind has ever built. Today, they can be found in national standards institutes or satellites of navigation systems. Scientists all over the world are working to further optimize the precision of these clocks. Now, a research group led by Peter Zoller, a theorist from Innsbruck, Austria, has developed a new concept that can be used to operate sensors with even greater precision irrespective of which technical platform is used to make the sensor. “We answer the question of how precise a sensor can be with existing control capabilities, and give a recipe for how this can be achieved,” explain Denis Vasilyev and Raphael Kaubrügger from Peter Zoller’s group at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck.

For this purpose, the physicists use a method from processing: Variational quantum algorithms describe a circuit of quantum gates that depends on free parameters. Through optimization routines, the sensor autonomously finds the best settings for an optimal result. “We applied this technique to a problem from metrology—the science of measurement,” Vasilyev and Kaubrügger explain. “This is exciting because historically advances in were motivated by metrology, and in turn emerged from that. So, we’ve come full circle here,” Peter Zoller says. With the new approach, scientists can optimize quantum sensors to the point where they achieve the best possible precision technically permissible.

Mar 23, 2022

Elon Musk’s SpaceX hikes Starlink internet costs due to rising inflation — new customers will now pay $710 upfront

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, internet, satellites

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet kit is going up from $499 to $549 for waiting deposit holders, and to $599 for new customers.

Mar 22, 2022

New satellites can boost safe communication. While clearing out space junk?

Posted by in category: satellites

Mar 21, 2022

SpaceX is launching OneWeb’s satellites after Russia drops out

Posted by in category: satellites

Mar 14, 2022

SpaceX drone ship leaves port for sixth back-to-back Starlink launch

Posted by in categories: drones, economics, internet, satellites

SpaceX drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) has departed Port Canaveral in anticipation of the company’s sixth consecutive Starlink launch.

Known as Starlink 4–12, the mission will be SpaceX’s sixth uninterrupted Starlink launch – just shy of the company’s record of seven Starlink launches between commercial payloads. Though SpaceX would probably prefer to avoid month-long streaks without commercial launches, the company’s ability to use its own launch capabilities to deploy its Starlink constellation means that it can maintain valuable economies of scale while simultaneously launching satellites that generate some revenue.

With approximately 200,000 active subscribers, Starlink should already be generating around ~$250 million in annual revenue – perhaps enough to pay for anywhere from five to ten Starlink launches. Viewed another way, $250M would also pay the average annual salaries of more than 2,300 employees. Even if it doesn’t come close to the $1–2 billion SpaceX is likely spending annually on Starlink development, deployment, and operations, it’s still better than the alternative that all other launch providers are left with: nothing.

Mar 13, 2022

SpaceX rapidly reuses converted Falcon Heavy booster

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, internet, satellites

SpaceX has reflown a converted Falcon Heavy side booster just 37 days after its first mission as a Falcon 9 rocket, successfully delivering a batch of Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) in the process.

Booster B1052 first flew in April 2019 as part of Falcon Heavy Block 5’s launch debut. The same side core was reused two and a half months later in June 2019 but was then unceremoniously ushered into an unknown warehouse. Despite earlier statements from CEO Elon Musk indicating that new Block 5 Falcon Heavy side boosters could be quickly and easily converted into Falcon 9 boosters, B1052 remained mothballed in storage for the better part of two and a half years. Only in December 2021 – almost 30 months after its last launch – did the former Falcon Heavy side core finally reappear in the form of a Falcon 9 booster.

A month and a half later, on January 31st, Falcon 9 B1052 debuted with the flawless launch of Italy’s CSG-2 Earth observation satellite, subsequently becoming the first SpaceX booster of any kind to complete three back-to-back ‘return-to-launch-site’ landings.

Mar 11, 2022

DoD space agency funds development of laser terminal that connects to multiple satellite at once

Posted by in categories: military, satellites

The Space Development Agency awarded BridgeComm and Space Micro a $1.7 million contract to demonstrate point-to-multipoint communications.

WASHINGTON — Each of the satellites in the Pentagon’s planned mesh network of communications satellites could have as many as many as four laser links so they can talk to other satellites, airplanes, ships and ground stations.

Optical inter-satellite links are critical to the success of the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit constellation — known as Transport Layer — that will be used to route data traffic. Lasers provide much higher transmission data rates than traditional radio-frequency communications but are also far more expensive.

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