SpaceX’s Grasshopper “leaps” higher

Yesterday, The Verge posted a neat video of SpaceX’s Grasshopper flying higher than ever. According to the article, Grasshopper flew 744 meters high, hovered, then returned safely to the launch pad. If you look closely at the video, it looks like SpaceX is using a quadcopter UAV or some such thing to film the rocket […]

Cyclone Phailin is set to become the strongest India has ever seen

The Category 5 cyclone…and this would be another reason why space matters. In less than 24 hours, this storm has changed from mere annoyance to lethal. This gives all Indians in the area a heads up and hopefully they can help themselves ride this one out. It looks bad!!

Government largesse, space exploration, and pants

This is another opinion piece, so just read on if you’re interested, or ignore it, click on your Amazon tab, and continue shopping. My encounter the other day with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website being down (you can go here to see that–or just type in http://www.nasa.gov) due to the government shutdown […]

Hostile hostels, hotels and Chinese satellites

This is a weird article, and I’m trying to figure out if part of the reason for the weirdness is if it’s a language thing. But according to the article, Chinese military analysts think China needs stealth satellites. And there’s really no good reason for stealth satellites other than military purposes. The article states the […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 15—decrypting the world with waves of color

Finally, we get to discuss the colors used for DigitalGlobe’s imagery satellites—or satellite, as we will be focusing (no pun intended—these satellites can’t really focus, remember) on WorldView-2. According to DigitalGlobe’s Basic Imagery literature, WorldView-2’s image sensors use eight different colors to look at the Earth: Coastal, Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Red Edge, Near-IR (InfraRed)1, […]