Washington DC (SPX) Jul 27, 2021
For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the moon's surface sublimates - that is, turns from solid to gas. Scientists used new and archival datasets from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to make the discovery, published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Previous research has offere

WASHINGTON — With slow progress on regulation and policy, astronomers are making progress on other approaches to mitigate the effects that satellite megaconstellations will have on their observations.

At the conclusion of the weeklong SATCON2 workshop July 16, astronomers announced a proposal to develop a virtual center called SatHub that will provide tools for astronomers to avoid satellite passes in their observations or correct observations affected by such passes.

WASHINGTON — A set of guidelines issued by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for responsible space operations should be part of a wider conversation about how to maintain safety and security in space, a senior Pentagon official said July 26.

WASHINGTON — Launch services for Space Development Agency satellites will be procured under the National Security Space Launch program run by the U.S. Space Force, according to an agency announcement.

SDA is a Defense Department agency that is building a large constellation of small communications satellites in low Earth orbit known as the Transport Layer.

TAMPA, Fla. — British telecoms regulator Ofcom is proposing rule changes that would affect Starlink, OneWeb and other satellite constellations operating in non-geostationary orbits (NGSO).

It is increasingly difficult for companies to agree on how to operate their NGSO networks without causing harmful radio interference to each other, Ofcom warned in a July 26 consultation document it issues before creating new rules.

In the late 1960s, enterprising scientist Peter Glaser proposed using orbiting satellites to collect incoming solar radiation, transform it into microwaves, and beam it down to focused receivers on Earth where it would be converted into electricity.

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos says his company will cover more than $2 billion in costs if NASA will award it a second Human Landing System (HLS) contract.

In a July 26 letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Bezos said the company would waive up to $2 billion in payments in the first years of a new award, as well as pay for a demonstration mission, should NASA give the company an HLS award like the one SpaceX received in April to develop and demonstrate a crewed lunar lander.

A highly unlikely, radically innovative synthesis of millimeter wave antenna design, digital communications coding, new-school terrestrial radio multi-signal processing and old-school satellite directional transmission could be delivering High Definition Internet from way-on-high to billions by 2026.