Science

ST. LOUIS – The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency plans to conduct an annual assessment of commercial satellite imagery like the Olympic-themed evaluation the organization conducted earlier this year. “Over the next four to five years, we expect to see 500 remote sensing satellites each year launching into space,” Dave Gauthier, director of NGA’s Commercial and Business

LONG BEACH, Calif. — NASA and Boeing are targeting the first half of 2022 to launch the rescheduled test flight of the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle as engineers continue to investigate a valve problem that postponed the mission two months ago. In an Oct. 8 statement, NASA said engineers had managed to free all

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Future Mars lander missions could adopt less stringent planetary protection requirements by landing in regions of the planet unlikely to allow any terrestrial contamination to propagate, a study concludes. The study by a National Academies committee, released Oct. 7, recommended that missions that don’t plan to go more than a meter

ST. LOUIS – The National Reconnaissance Office roadmap for bringing commercial satellite imagery into its hybrid space architecture, which includes government and commercial satellites, emphasizes cybersecurity and licenses that allow the agency to share data with partners inside and outside the U.S. government. The NRO already delivers approximately 50,000 commercial images per week that it

Local cooling: researchers have found that large solar farms can affect temperatures up to 700 m away. (Courtesy: iStock/Noctiluxx) The Sun may be fading fast here in the northern hemisphere, but the number of solar panels installed here in the UK and elsewhere continues to grow by leaps and bounds. As the area of land

Based on intelligence from SAR imagery, Lewis concluded that the Chinese are building a large wind turbine farm presumably to power missile silos ST. LOUIS — Photos taken by commercial satellites and analyzed by arms control experts earlier this year revealed that China is building 119 silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in a desert in

Maxar VP Tony Frazier says the $600 million constellation is a ‘complex program’ ST. LOUIS — Maxar remains confident that it will launch all six of its next-generation WorldView Legion imaging satellites in 2022,  “We anticipate all six to be on orbit next year,” Tony Frazier, Maxar’s executive vice president of global field operations, told

Out there: the possible presence of a ninth planet in our solar system was first proposed over five years ago (Courtesy: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser) Computer simulations by astronomers in the US have presented a new clue for researchers hunting a hypothesised planet hiding in the far reaches of the solar system. The modelling suggests that

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Hans Koenigsmann, one of the first employees of SpaceX and who recently retired from the company, has joined the board of satellite laser communications company Mynaric. Mynaric announced Oct. 6 that Koenigsmann will join the German company’s supervisory board, the equivalent of a board of directors. He will take the place

Robotics and automation are playing a huge role across the rapidly evolving new space economy and value chains adjacent to space The new space economy is being driven by more than billionaires and tourists wishing to go to the great beyond, or governments seeking to commercialize space missions.   Capital is rapidly flowing to space companies

Cool vegetation: a study in the Finnish taiga has shown that plants have a cooling effect as temperatures increase. (Courtesy: Kallerna/CC BY-SA 3.0) Researchers in Finland have observed a plant-induced cooling effect in the atmosphere, which strengthens as temperatures increase. The team, led by Taina Yli-Juuti at the University of Eastern Finland, studied the negative

ST. LOUIS – LatConnect 60 will feed Spire Global Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel-tracking data into algorithms the Australian Earth-observation startup is developing with Curtin University to prevent maritime collisions, the companies announced Oct. 5. With funding from the Australian Research Council, LatConnect 60 and Curtin University’s Intelligent Sensing & Perception Laboratory are creating sensor-fusion

ST. LOUIS – Orbital Micro Systems announced an agreement Oct. 5 with UK technology firm Thomas Keating Ltd. to jointly fund design, development and testing of millimeter-wave instruments for commercial weather satellites. OMS launched the first commercial cubesat equipped with a microwave radiometer in 2019. Since then, the Boulder, Colorado-based firm has been working to

Nobel winners: (From left to right) Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi. (Courtesy: Bengt Nyman; J J Guillen/EPA/Shutterstock; Michele Catanzaro) Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi have won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics. The prize is awarded “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems”. The prize is worth 10

ST. LOUIS — Hyperspectral analytics company HySpecIQ and optical communications specialist BridgeComm announced an agreement to integrate BridgeComm high-speed optical downlinks with HySpecIQ satellites destined for low Earth orbit. “We are eager to extend our satellite constellation program and hyperspectral imagery capabilities with BridgeComm’s integration,” Bill Sullivan, HySpecIQ executive chairman and founder, said in a

Valley Tech holds multiple Small Business Innovation Research contracts from the Missile Defense Agency, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army WASHINGTON — Voyager Space announced Oct. 4 it has acquired Valley Tech Systems, a company that developed solid-fueled propulsion for long-range missiles, as well as signal processing and geolocation technologies for the