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Satellite
Long awaited satellite to monitor water cycle reaches orbit
By Darren Quick
22:43 November 5, 2009 PST
The 658kg (1,450 lb) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) this week is the first ever satellite designed both to map sea surface salinity and to monitor soil moisture on a global scale. The unique radiometer it carries will enable passive surveying of the water cycle between oceans, the atmosphere and land thereby playing a key role in the monitoring of global climate change. Read More
GPS satellites tell us where we are, but what tells them where they are?
By Jeff Salton
18:00 November 1, 2009 PST
Global Positioning System (GPS) devices have permeated society to the point where millions of us rely on them daily for directions, locations and traffic avoidance (if only they could tell me where I left my car keys). GPS satellites send signals to a receiver in your handheld or car-based GPS navigator, which calculates your position on the planet based on the location of the satellites and your distance from them. The distance is determined by how long it took the signals from various satellites to reach your receiver. But have you ever thought what tells the GPS satellites where they are in the first place? Read More
Google announces free turn-by-turn maps app for Android - looks the goods
By Darren Quick
01:37 October 29, 2009 PDT
Every platform needs a killer app and for the Android OS the early contender for that title has to be the just announced Google Maps Navigation for mobile. Only available for Android 2.0 phones, the new application takes the current Google Maps for mobile and gives it a hefty shot of steroids. Most of the new features that set the app apart from most in-car turn-by-turn navigation systems come courtesy of its Internet connectivity, which makes it possible to access a wealth of relevant information residing on Google’s servers while out and about. Read More
'Hyperspectral Remote Sensor' senses disasters from space
By Darren Quick
23:59 October 25, 2009 PDT
Combining sophisticated sensors in orbit with sensors on the ground and in the air has led researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) to create a “Hyperspectral Remote Sensor” (HRS) that can give advance warnings about water contamination after a forest fire, alert authorities of a pollution spill long before a red flag is raised on Earth, or inform the population where a monsoon will strike. Read More
The ultra-thin JVC SP-FT home theater – only 31mm thick
By Jeff Salton
20:23 October 14, 2009 PDT
Just when you thought your room wasn’t big enough for a home theater, JVC has come to the rescue with its ultra-slim amplifier and speakers, designed to sit perfectly alongside or underneath your ultra-slim 50-inch TV or projector screen. The SP-FT model from JVC is a pair of 31mm thin satellite speakers and matching amplifier which pump out an adequate 80W total output over four independent channels and support Dolby Digital, DTS and AAC formats. Read More
Go live! Livestream Livepack puts a satellite truck in your backpack
By Jeff Salton
22:50 September 30, 2009 PDT
A new backpack from Livestream called the Livepack puts a broadcast TV truck on your shoulders without the weight or cumbersome dimensions – but with the same broadcast capabilities. If you get A-list invitations that put you up close and personal with celebrities, or just fancy yourself as part of the paparazzi, this is a must-have device. The Livestream Livepack crams into a backpack the hardware unit to encode and transmit HD video, a Firewire cable, and six load-balanced built-in 3G modems in order to get the highest possible available bitrate. The system even comes with a dedicated IP address to stream to your Livestream channel - you’ll be a professional roving reporter before you know it (as long as you can provide your own Firewire DV camera). Read More
Swift snaps our best-ever ultraviolet image of neighboring Andromeda Galaxy
By Jeff Salton
18:51 September 20, 2009 PDT
In a galaxy far, far away … about 2.5 million light years, in fact, lie approximately 20,000 hot, young stars and dense clusters that comprise the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, was recently captured by an ultraviolet optical telescope aboard NASA’s Swift satellite, and delivers the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. Read More
X-ray telescope to shed light on dark energy
By Darren Quick
00:45 August 21, 2009 PDT
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Russia’s Roskosmos space agency are joining forces to try and shed some light on the poorly understood phenomenon referred to as ‘dark energy’. In 2012 the German 'extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array'(eROSITA) X-ray telescope will be taken into orbit on board the Russian Spektrum Roentgen Gamma (SRG) satellite to start searching for black holes and dark matter in an attempt to answer why the expansion of the universe is accelerating instead of slowing down. Read More
Raytheon announces improved infrared detector
By Paul Ridden
18:41 August 17, 2009 PDT
Raytheon has announced the creation of the world's largest infra-red light wave detector, the "4K by 4K" focal plane array. Not only will it allow whole hemisphere satellite monitoring at 16 megapixel resolution but it should also make sensors less dependent on the complicated scanning mechanisms used in current systems. Read More
Solara Field Tracker 2100 - handheld GPS with text messaging
By Gizmag Team
00:19 July 18, 2009 PDT
The USD$880 Solara Field Tracker 2100 is a handheld GPS with text messaging – no voice, no video, no apps, just text. This may not seem a particularly enticing value proposition, particularly when you consider the USD$30 a month subscription fee, but wait … there's more! As it operates over the Iridium satellite network, which offers truly global coverage, it means you can stay in touch even if you're trekking the Himalayas, or the Silk road or Antarctica. Throw in extreme ruggedness, automatic position reporting and a two-way Emergency Alert notification system and it's a very compelling proposition if you're an adventurer who enjoys getting well off the beaten track. Read More
ECCO: The handy GPS locator on a keyring
By Paul Ridden
20:42 July 16, 2009 PDT
Thanks to personal navigation systems, the days of getting completely lost whilst out wandering are well and truly behind us. GPS navigation systems can now show you 3D representations of your surroundings, give you multiple routing options and can even let you know if there's a good restaurant nearby. You can buy units to mount in your car, on your bike or on your wrist and can now even get GPS capabilities in most modern mobile phones. But if all you want is to be able to find your way back to where you started from as quickly and easily as possible then the ECCO personal GPS navigator might be of interest. Read More
Satellites get the jump on storm prediction
By Darren Quick
01:35 July 9, 2009 PDT
When it comes to severe thunderstorms, every minute of advance warning can be vital. Present methods rely on radar to detect impending storms, but a new technique that uses satellites to measure the temperature changes in the tops of clouds, could predict severe thunderstorms up to 45 minutes earlier than relying on traditional radar alone. Read More
Squad positioning system helps fight fires and save lives
23:22 June 10, 2009 PDT
Student designer Roy Hareguina's "Squad" is a compact indoor positioning system that enables fire fighters, even in dense smoke, to know their exact location and that of their colleagues at all times. Using a dual-mapping system, the tough polyetheretherketone (PEEK) units reduce the danger of separation and disorientation in high-rise buildings, and increase a fire fighter’s ability to save lives. Read More
Lockheed Martin to develop geostationary Solar Powered Airship
By Paul Evans
22:12 April 30, 2009 PDT
May 1, 2009 The idea of replacing very expensive space based satellites and Aircraft mounted Airborne Warning And Control Systems (AWACS) with stationary platforms inside Earth's atmosphere has been floated for decades. Despite the fact that lighter-than-air vehicles or airships that could fulfill this role have been flying for over 300 years, the idea is only now getting off the ground. Lockheed Martin has been chosen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a US$400 million contract to to design, build, test and fly a 1:3 scale model of an airship surveillance and telecommunications platform called the High Altitude Airship (HAA). The full scale HAA would measure 240 ft long by 70 ft in diameter, run entirely on solar power and be able to stay aloft for up to 10 years. Read More
Space sail to take out the trash
By Darren Quick
12:47 April 26, 2009 PDT
We’ve recently examined the danger posed to future space missions by the ever increasing collection of space junk orbiting the Earth. Now a plan by a pair of space engineers to use a sail to take out the trash – or rather, bring it back to Earth – may help to stop future space missions adding to the problem of space junk. Read More
CO2 monitoring satellite fails to reach orbit
18:14 February 24, 2009 PST
In bad news for NASA (and the planet in general), the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite did not reach orbit as planned yesterday. According to a launch contingency briefing from NASA, the Taurus XL from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base at 4:55 a.m. EST proceeded normally, with only typical "minor issues" reported as the rocket approached lift-off, but preliminary indications are that the fairing on the Taurus XL launch vehicle failed to separate. Read More
Toilet training the space community
By Darren Quick
16:27 February 15, 2009 PST
When we are born, we soil ourselves and other people clean it up for us. As we mature, we take responsibility for our own excrement. Strangely, as a society, we're not at all good at toilet training ourselves regarding the excrement produced by industry, transport or agriculture. Human beings capacity to eschew short term gain when faced with long term harm is notoriously woeful so it’s not surprising we've done exactly the same thing in space, leaving so much debris that it's now dangerous to be in the orbital band around earth due to the likelihood of being hit by junk traveling at 18,000 mph. The latest evidence: last week saw the first ever accidental collision between two intact spacecraft, a deactivated Russian satellite and an Iridium 33 satellite, which left a fresh cloud of debris 497 miles above the Earth. Read More
NASA’s Space Observatory to provide global measurements of CO2
By Darren Quick
00:56 February 5, 2009 PST
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory spacecraft and its Taurus XL launch vehicle are undergoing preparations for liftoff on February 23. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory’s mission is to collect precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that regulate the abundance and distribution of this important greenhouse gas - important because its the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate. This improved understanding will enable more reliable forecasts of future changes in the abundance and distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere and the effect that these changes may have on the Earth's climate. Read More
Google Earth goes to Mars
By Darren Quick
00:30 February 5, 2009 PST
Anyone not familiar with Google’s virtual globe program Google Earth would have to have been living on another planet – maybe Mars. But a new initiative by Google and NASA might pique even Martian interest with the advent of a Mars mode in Google Earth 5. Google Mars 3D brings the red, red hills of home to any Earth bound Martian’s desktop and enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars, higher than any found on Earth. Read More
NASA two years away from full sun visualization
By Kyle Sherer
14:10 January 27, 2009 PST
NASA's two STEREO spacecraft, launched on October 25, 2006, will align on either side of the sun on February 6, 2011, allowing scientists to view the entire sun simultaneously for the first time in history. The Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory is currently providing scientists with a view of 75% of the sun. Read More
Remote observatory aims to solve Earth's magnetic mystery
By Kyle Sherer
14:58 December 1, 2008 PST
Until November, Tristan da Cunha was home only to 271 people, a small flightless bird, and a piece of land named Inaccessible Island. Now the world's most remote inhabited archipelago is host to a Danish Observatory designed to help improve our understanding the Earth’s weakening magnetic field and the way this affects satellites. Read More
Solar Power Satellites could broadcast energy to Earth
By Kyle Sherer
15:03 October 29, 2008 PDT
Dusting off an old renewable energy proposal, president of the National Space Society Ben Bova recently published an article in The Washington Post calling for the next president of the United States to commission a US$1 billion solar power satellite from NASA before the end of their second term. The satellite would harness energy directly from the sun and broadcast it back to a receiver on Earth using microwave frequencies. Read More
India launches first lunar mission
By Kyle Sherer
18:32 October 26, 2008 PDT
The Indian Space Research Organisation has successfully launched Chandrayaan-1, the country’s first scientific mission to the moon. The two-year, USD$80 million mission will see the PSLV-C11 rocket enter lunar orbit in roughly two weeks, before descending to a final 100 km-high circular orbit. The Moon Impact Probe will land on the lunar surface, while the orbiter will continue gathering data with 11 scientific instruments. Read More
NASA launches Interstellar Boundary Explorer
By Kyle Sherer
16:41 October 20, 2008 PDT
NASA has launched the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, which will observe the edge of our solar system from a 200,000-mile Earth orbit and determine whether or not we’re... err, doomed. Over the next two years, the 23-inch high octagonal craft will study the area of space where solar wind hits the wider galaxy – hopefully it will also find out why the solar wind, which shields us from harmful cosmic rays, has decreased by 25% in the last ten years. Read More
Universal remote control with built-in WiFi, color screen
By Emily Clark
01:17 October 16, 2008 PDT
There’s no point hauling yourself off the couch to go outside only to find that the weather’s terrible, right? The Universal Smart Remote Control from Acoustic Research eliminates the guess work displaying up to date weather information, plus news, sports and TV listings using a built-in WiFi connection. Read More
Jonathan Cole
- November 6, 2009 @ 16:15 UTC
