Satellite data provider Planet announced Tuesday that it plans to launch a new fleet of orbiting eyes so powerful they can distinguish road markings on the ground.
Space Exploration
Oct 12, 2021
0
9
Academics at the University of Surrey's Centre for Environment and Sustainability have undertaken research that proves Earth Observation satellite imagery can accurately assess the quality and quantity of some habitat types.
Ecology
Oct 12, 2021
0
21
A fractured pipeline that spewed crude oil off the coast of California could have been leaking for a year, US investigators said Friday.
Environment
Oct 09, 2021
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28
In the short time since NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, it's already made history.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 08, 2021
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93
The Australian-made space weather satellite CUAVA-1 was deployed into orbit from the International Space Station on Wednesday night. Launched to the space station in August aboard a SpaceX rocket, a major focus of this shoebox-sized ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 07, 2021
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5
In August 2021, new testing equipment arrived at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in the form of a gravity offset table. NASA engineers will use the table to test robotic satellite servicing technologies ...
Space Exploration
Oct 07, 2021
0
15
A new data source to help scientists better understand the ionosphere and its potential impact on communications and positioning, navigation, and timing—an essential utility for many critical operations—is now available ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 06, 2021
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7
Energy from the solar wind interacting with the magnetospheric 'bubble' around Earth creates waves of energy that appear to stand still.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 06, 2021
0
897
This week marks seven years since the very first satellite that ESA built for the European Union's Copernicus program started delivering data to monitor the environment. The Sentinel-1A satellite has shed new light on our ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 05, 2021
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5
The cosmos is the stage for a variety of giant explosions. These include stellar flares, where stars suddenly release magnetic energy; and neutron star mergers, where two dense stars collide together. But one class of explosions ...
Astronomy
Oct 05, 2021
1
402
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavor. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon.
The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. By 2009 thousands of satellites have been launched into orbit around the Earth. These originate from more than 50 countries and have used the satellite launching capabilities of ten nations. A few hundred satellites are currently operational, whereas thousands of unused satellites and satellite fragments orbit the Earth as space debris. A few space probes have been placed into orbit around other bodies and become artificial satellites to the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Satellites are used for a large number of purposes. Common types include military (spy) and civilian Earth observation satellites, communication satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, and research satellites. Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites. Satellite orbits vary greatly, depending on the purpose of the satellite, and are classified in a number of ways. Well-known (overlapping) classes include low Earth orbit, polar orbit, and geostationary orbit.
Satellites are usually semi-independent computer controlled systems. Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control and orbit control.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
