Out of Many, One (Synthetic Image, that is)

This Defense Update post sounds like something I may have talked about before–using a flock of small maneuvering satellites, with each satellite within the flock taking an image and using each image to build a big, high resolution image–one a bigger, more expensive satellite might get with a big imagery sensor. NASA’s contractor, Aurora Flight […]

Pictures of a Decaying Satellite

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) -run Landsat 8 Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) imagery satellite’s primary job is to take pictures of the Earth. But occasionally, like teenagers with new camera phones, Landsat 8 feels compelled to take pictures of other satellites. Really—you can see the evidence here […]

Fill it up, RROxITT! And check the solar panels, too.

For a very long time, satellites orbiting the Earth have had a very finite lifetime. Some satellites have lasted over ten years, and aside from anomalies and failing components, a satellite’s fuel tank has been key to how long a satellite can function. But that might change soon for geosynchronous (GEO) satellites, thanks to RROxITT (Remote Robotic […]

NASA Centennial Challenges in Space

Here’s my latest Clearancejobs.com post for you. NASA wants competitors in this challenge to do some very interesting things with small satellites. You can read about the details in: NASA Centennial Challenges: The Start of Star Trekking?

NASA Earth Image pictures

Wired just posted these pictures to their site. These are apparently from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellites and International Space Station astronauts. So you can see images like the one below: Unlike the DigitalGlobe ones, you can only look at these pictures, not vote on which one you like. But they’re interesting […]