Everyone’s worried but SpaceX

This particular article highlights some interesting differences in philosophy about success and risk (and there is a link) between established players and SpaceX. For opinion, sadly not about space operations, but rather the future of them, read further. The scenario: SpaceX has decided to upgrade their rocket engines to more powerful ones, and update the […]

This is why space matters and a preview of satellite imagery operations

The article on Indiegogo‘s website came to my attention from a Mr. Tobias Nassif, who lives on linked in, but also is the SVP from Skybox Imaging. There’s a SpaceUnited initiative online asking for donations to help buy imagery for relief organizations. This initiative is called the Satellite Humanitarian Imagery Mission (SHIM-1). Just go to the […]

Too much Corona, a Discoverer’s tale seen through the Keyhole

I just came upon this article from the Discovery Channel, and it tickled some memory cells. Back when we just started lobbing imagery satellites up into low earth orbit, we didn’t have the comprehensive ground systems and bandwidth of today. There was no such thing as a digital camera to be used as a payload. […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 11—Payloads and programs—the lesson that won’t get learned.

Last lesson, you learned a little bit about satellite busses and bus-driving. Almost all satellite busses are similar to each other. If you looked at a RapidEye satellite bus specifications and a Digitalglobe satellite bus, you’d likely think they might be one and the same. But the payload is different. The satellite payload (and orbit) […]

Now the Russians are worried about Chinese “Terminator” satellites

I just caught this on Twitter from @prchovanec. It seems the Russians think the Chinese satellite I mentioned in this aside could pose a problem for them, too. The twittered article mentions a few other sources, such as Bob Christy, for their suppositions too, but I urge you to read it. We all were made […]