Explorer 1, the First US Satellite

January 31st, 1958. 56 years ago, and the United States had finally succeeded in launching its own satellite, the Explorer 1. According to this Yahoo! Travel post, the launch of Explorer 1 was linked to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The big deal about that, as explained in this wiki entry, is the IGY marked the beginning […]

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?

From Earth to the Moon?

I am not sure what to make of the video above. The cannon launcher seems like a bit of a joke, especially in the backyard setting, but it could also work. And the inventor is asking for money to make it all a reality (see last paragraph of this post for details and link). It’s […]

Daily Show Jade Rabbit Commentary

Here’s a little fun for you today. Jon Stewart talked about China’s Jade Rabbit on 4 February 2014. For those of you at work, this is definitely NSFW. But it’s quite funny, and I always wondered about the name Jade Rabbit (yes, yes, i DO understand why the Chinese named it that). Anyway, for your […]

Why Space Matters: GEO Satellite operations, Part 6–Eclipse

All that you touch, all that you see… Yep, you guessed it! We’re going to talk about another issue common to geostationary (GEO) satellites: the eclipse. This issue is almost opposite from the problem discussed in Part 5 of the GEO lesson series. Instead of being overpowered by the sun’s energy, the satellite can’t function […]