Satellite

The UK is getting a new £40 million (US$60 million) International Space Innovation Center (ISIC) as part of the Government’s plans to support Britain’s growing space sector. The announcement came at the launch of the UK's new Space Agency.  Read More

We’ve looked at the problem of orbiting space junk before and the threat it poses to the future of space exploration and the use of satellites. Now scientists have devised a miniature “nanosatellite” fitted with a “solar sail” that can be used on satellites or upper stage launch vehicles. Once the equipment that has reached the end of its mission, the solar sails can be deployed to successfully achieve de-orbit. While it won’t cut the amount of debris already whizzing around above our heads, it will help stop future missions adding to the problem.  Read More

When reconnaissance pilots brought back precious surveillance photos during World War II (WWII) they could not have imagined that they would one day be comparable with the cityscape seen from satellite 50 years into the future, and available around the world at the touch of a button. Google has made this possible with new functionality for Google Earth - historical WWII imagery - giving people a unique opportunity to see the effect of past events using today's mapping technology.  Read More

We rely so heavily on information gathered by satellites and weather instruments to help us program our daily lives, imagine what would happen if the data we received from these technologies went bad and foretold of cataclysmic outcomes in the days or weeks ahead? Panic could induce scenes on our streets reminiscent of Hollywood disaster movies. To avert such events - or just help get things right even if the forecast is more mundane - scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) have devised an innovative computational technique called Intelligent Outlier Detection Algorithm, or IODA, that draws on statistics, imaging, and other disciplines in order to detect errors in sensitive technological systems.  Read More

It’s official: the Arctic tern has the longest migration of any animal in the world. The Arctic Tern Migration Project recently discovered that the tern flies over 70,000 kilometers (43,496 miles) annually, from its breeding grounds in the Arctic to its winter quarters in the Antarctic. That distance is more than twice what was previously estimated. Over the lifetime of one bird, it travels approximately 2.4 million kilometers, the equivalent of three trips to the moon and back. For a bird that weighs just over 100 grams (3.5 ounces), that’s fairly impressive.  Read More

TomTom's EASE is the latest addition to its satellite navigation family and brings all the functionality, ease of use and practicality of its siblings at a fraction of the cost. Launched at CES in Las Vegas this week, the EASE blends a simple two icon interface menu, an integrated fold-away mount and the company's proprietary Map Share and IQ Routes - all for around a hundred US dollars.  Read More

A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic to understand the trigger mechanism for the beautiful light display called the aurora borealis – also known as the Northern Lights – has discovered that sometimes the vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing a stunning outburst. The reason no one on Earth has ever noticed these collisions before is that they occur on such a vast scale it takes a network of sensitive cameras spread across thousands of miles to get the whole picture.  Read More

Earlier this year we reported that California’s biggest power utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), was seeking to buy power generated by space-based solar panels pending regulatory approval from its home state of California. Now, true to the State’s goal of increasing its reliance on a diverse supply of renewable energy resources, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has granted regulatory approval, with energy start-up Solaren tackling the challenge of making the project work.  Read More

Scientists have long speculated about the source of significant quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the moon's lunar poles, and just a few months ago NASA announced that water molecules were indeed present, but in relatively small amounts. Now the Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) that was employed to shed some more light on the presence of water on the moon, looks like it has done just that with preliminary data indicating the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently-shadowed crater.  Read More