Old footage of Soviet rocket launch attempts

Here’s at least one video, on Jalopnik’s page, of a failed launch. Note, Jalopnik’s accompanying post of why the Soviets failed to get to the moon before the United States seems to be supposition, but likely true. The Soviets made their equipment more complicated (see the article), giving Murphy (or perhaps the Imp of the […]

Curious about spy satellites? Now there’s an app for that!

To say there are a lot of interesting satellites orbiting the Earth with unknown missions, at least unknown to the public, belonging either to the US or other nations, is an understatement. And when governments withhold the number of, ahem, “black” satellites orbiting the Earth as the US did last year, well, that just encourages […]

Almost batting a thousand–the contribution of Kepler (and others)

There have been a few posts on TMSB regarding the Kepler satellite and reaction wheel issues affecting it. But all that planet-hunting, the primary mission of the Kepler team, has paid off in the amount of information learned from their, and other satellites’, endeavors. You’ll learn a thing or two if you take a read […]

Troll: leaving the bridge behind

Trolls–remember when only billy goats had to deal with them?? Now humans have to worry about Trolls’ tolls, not just in snarky, crude comments, but in space operations. Actually, it’s only a select group of humans, and Troll, while it deals with space, is on Earth–specifically on ice (well, 300 kilometers (187.5 miles) from the […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 16—“Blue are the streets, And all the trees are too”

Who could forget 1999’s most famous dance single? But does anyone remember the song’s group?? Enough dancing—time to talk about satellite operations until we’re blue in the face (sorry, couldn’t resist). As mentioned in the previous lesson, this lesson is about DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 satellite and the blue spectrum of its imagery payload. Mainly, what is […]