U.K. to strengthen regulations for Starlink, OneWeb and other NGSO constellations
Monday, 26 July 2021 14:59TAMPA, 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.
Op-ed | It’s time to seriously consider space-based solar power
Monday, 26 July 2021 14:00In 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.
Bezos offers billions in incentives for NASA lunar lander contract
Monday, 26 July 2021 12:19WASHINGTON — 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.
Tech Breakthrough Morphs Gigabit WiFi into Terabit Satellite Internet
Monday, 26 July 2021 11:37A 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.
China is working on a relay satellite to support lunar polar missions
Monday, 26 July 2021 11:04HELSINKI — China is developing a new lunar relay satellite to support future exploration missions to the south pole of the moon.
Op-ed | The Success of Artemis Hinges on NASA’s Commitment to Competition
Monday, 26 July 2021 11:00The United States is about to take its next giant leap into space – the return of U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2024, this time to stay.
Report calls on government agencies to better coordinate spectrum
Monday, 26 July 2021 10:19WASHINGTON — An interagency dispute about the use of a spectrum band for weather forecasting versus terrestrial wireless services illustrates the need for the federal government to reform its spectrum management processes, a report concluded.
Reprogrammable satellite is ready for launch
Monday, 26 July 2021 07:33A European telecommunications satellite that can be completely repurposed while in orbit has been placed on board a rocket ready for launch on 30 July.
Google parent launches new 'moonshot' for robotics software
Monday, 26 July 2021 04:14Google's parent Alphabet unveiled a new "moonshot" project to develop software for robotics which could be used in a wide range of industries. The new unit, dubbed Intrinsic, will "become an independent Alphabet company," and seek industrial partners to advance their work helping to make everything from solar panels to cars, the new unit's chief, Wendy Tan-White, said in a blog post. "In
The Red Planet has a larger core and a thinner crust
Sunday, 25 July 2021 11:12Mars' surface is known in great detail through exploration using orbiting spacecraft. But until now its interior structure could only be derived indirectly or simulated using computational models. With the participation of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), NASA's InSight mission has provided surprising new discoveries. The core of our planetary n
Better understanding of Earth's atmospheric chemistry from studying Mars?
Sunday, 25 July 2021 11:12Long-term studies of ozone and water vapour in the atmosphere of Mars could lead to better understanding of atmospheric chemistry for the Earth. A new analysis of data from ESA's Mars Express mission has revealed that our knowledge of the way these atmospheric gases interact with each other is incomplete. Using four martian years of observations from the SPICAM (Spectroscopy for the Invest
Insight data offers clues to Mars' deep interior, formation in solar system
Sunday, 25 July 2021 11:12Marsquake data collected by NASA's InSight lander has allowed planetary scientists to more accurately characterize Mars' deep interior, as well as offered clues to the Red Planet's origins. "Insight has confirmed that our view that Mars is a planet that was once almost entirely molten and separated into a crust, mantle and core as it cooled," Amir Khan of ETH Zurich said Friday during a
China's Mars rover travels 585 meters on red planet
Sunday, 25 July 2021 11:12China's Mars rover Zhurong has traveled 585 meters on the surface of the red planet as of Friday, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. On Friday, the Mars orbiter marked its first anniversary of operation. Now it is about 378 million km away from Earth. The delay of its one-way communication was around 21 minutes, said the
The anatomy of a planet
Sunday, 25 July 2021 11:12Since early 2019, researchers have been recording and analysing marsquakes as part of the InSight mission. This relies on a seismometer whose data acquisition and control electronics were developed at ETH Zurich. Using this data, the researchers have now measured the red planet's crust, mantle and core - data that will help determine the formation and evolution of Mars and, by extension, the ent