Consumer & Gadgets
A drone has set an endurance record that has made headlines. Specifically, The Engineer and other sites reported it was in the air for 25 days, 23 hours and 57 minutes. The UK-built pilotless drone took off from Arizona ...
Telecom
Though satellite internet has existed for years, the competition is about to rapidly intensify, with companies planning to launch thousands of their own systems into low Earth orbit.
Apr 7, 2022
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118
Engineering
A prototype quantum sensor with potential applications in GPS-free navigation, developed at Imperial College London, has been tested in collaboration with the Royal Navy.
May 26, 2023
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298
Hardware
The new Galileo satellite model from Thales Alenia Space underwent mechanical and signal performance testing this summer at ESA's ESTEC Test Center. Structural models resisted launch-like noise and vibrations while an electrical ...
Nov 17, 2023
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17
Engineering
In May 2022, the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload onboard a small CubeSat satellite was launched into orbit 300 miles above Earth's surface. Since then, TBIRD has delivered terabytes of data at record-breaking rates ...
Dec 1, 2022
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144
Telecom
More than 700 imaging satellites are orbiting the earth, and every day they beam vast oceans of information—including data that reflects climate change, health and poverty—to databases on the ground. There's just one ...
Jul 20, 2021
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26
Business
When a new consumer technology makes its debut, whether it's a smartphone or an electric car, its adoption rate typically follows a predictable path. The first buyers come from a narrow slice of high-income users or tech ...
Nov 16, 2022
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44
Telecom
False GPS signals that deceive on-board plane systems and complicate the work of airline pilots are surging near conflict zones, industry employees and officials told AFP.
Mar 10, 2024
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40
Hi Tech & Innovation
For the first time, researchers have trained a machine learning model in outer space, on board a satellite. This achievement could enable real-time monitoring and decision making for a range of applications, from disaster ...
Jul 28, 2023
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150
Energy & Green Tech
A trio of researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne has found that solar panels could provide a lot more power for Switzerland than has been previously thought. In their paper published in Proceedings of ...
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
