Engineering
On 11 September 2022, a diamond mine waste storage facility, known as a tailings dam, failed in the town of Jagersfontein in the Free State province of South Africa. In the failure, one person was killed and multiple homes ...
Apr 5, 2023
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75
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
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
Energy & Green Tech
With electricity comes prosperity, right? The answer might seem obvious—that electricity is key to economic growth and other societal benefits like better health. But in the world's most impoverished regions, where resources ...
Nov 16, 2022
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45
Telecom
Researchers of Delft University of Technology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and VSL have developed an alternative positioning system that is more robust and accurate than GPS, especially in urban settings. The working prototype ...
Nov 16, 2022
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199
Telecom
A team of Western Australian researchers have found a way to avoid the need to use radio transmitters in critical communications, using new technology featuring super-fast optical lasers.
Nov 9, 2022
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669
Hardware
Most space satellites are powered by photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight to electricity. Exposure to certain types of radiation present in orbit can damage the devices, degrading their performance and limiting their ...
Nov 8, 2022
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70
Telecom
Birmingham scientists have revealed a new beam-steering antenna that increases the efficiency of data transmission for 'beyond 5G'—and opens up a range of frequencies for mobile communications that are inaccessible to currently ...
Jun 3, 2022
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116
Computer Sciences
In recent years, crowdsourcing, which involves recruiting members of the public to help collect data, has been tremendously helpful to provide researchers with unique and rich datasets, while also engaging the public in the ...
May 19, 2022
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104
Energy & Green Tech
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) created a solar cell with a record 39.5% efficiency under 1-sun global illumination. This is the highest efficiency solar cell of ...
May 19, 2022
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436
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
