A little birdie let me know last week that Broadbandwherever.net has created a new poster (pictured above) illustrating satellite highlights of the last thirty or so years. Okay, okay–sure this is their way of getting their name out there, but with this poster it’s an interesting and educational way. The poster sort of adds on to their other poster, one highlighted on this blog earlier this year in March. That poster was titled “An Early History of Satellites.” It illustrated the first 28 years of satellite highlights, beginning with Sputnik-1’s launch in October 1957 to the Czechoslovakian (don’t know that country? Go here for a little history.) Magion 1 satellite in 1978.
This latest creation, titled “A Recent History of Satellites: 1980s – 2000s,” continues the satellite highlights three years later–August 1981. Bulgaria managed to put their Bulgaria 1300 satellite in orbit around Earth. It was the first satellite the Bulgarians launched into space. Bulgaria 1300 had many different kinds of sensor payloads on board the satellite, and if you’re interested in them, please go to the wiki, here, to read about them. The satellite is still orbiting the Earth 33 years later. You can go to this site to check out where it is right now.
When asked how Bulgaria 1300 and the other satellites where selected for this particular poster, the response was that Broadbandwherever.net wanted to highlight country “firsts,” technology demonstrators, etc. Basically anything that was interesting to highlight. But they didn’t want to highlight too many, because the poster would become more crowded, and bigger. So they did a bit of research, and then condensed it down to the bite-sized poster they have on their site.
This might explain why your favorite satellite isn’t on there (you DO have a favorite satellite, don’t you?). Honestly, there are so many different satellites out there, especially small satellites launched during the past few years, it would be challenging to get them all on one poster. But the poster works as it should, at least for me. Who knew there were so many different countries out there with so many different satellites? How many more will benefit from small satellite and cube satellite technology and launch their own inexpensive satellite? This stuff will get more interesting, probably sooner than later.
Sounds like material for another poster later on.
The Mad Spaceball 